Upcycled Life: Sweater mittens

Wool is such a beautiful and cozy fiber even after accidents with the washing machine. Shrunken wool sweaters can be upcycled into functional items like these color block mittens. It’s also a great way to reuse a sweater with damage that is beyond repair.

Use different sweaters for contrasting colors and to use up smaller sweater scraps. Polar fleece can be upcycled for this project if you don’t have wool.

Find a felted wool sweater or put a thrifted wool sweater in your washing machine and dryer to felt the fibers.

Then, find a template. There’s one with this story online at spokesman.com, or there are many free sweater mitten patterns online to print out. Cut out the pieces, making sure to mirror the thumb pieces so you have a right and left mitten.

Match up the thumb pieces wrong sides together and blanket stitch around the thumb. Then pull your thread through to the inside of the mitten and fold the pieces right side together. Stitch the flat palm seam from the inside. (See photos for blanket stitch)

Lay the front of the mitten that you just stitched with the back piece, wrong sides together.

Blanket stitch up the sides, around the top and back down the other side. When you get back to the opening, blanket stitch around the bottom edge (one layer) to finish the raw edge.

Katie Patterson Larson is the director and founder of Art Salvage. Art Salvage keeps usable materials out of the waste stream and makes them accessible and affordable. For more information, visit artsalvagespokane.com.