Making Mark Mitts

Mark's been looking for a new pair of leather mitts.  He hasn't found what he wants, so we've decided to make them ourselves.  Since we don't hunt, we ordered some moose hide online.

We followed the instructions for buckskin mitts by the Urban Aboriginal.


We traced Mark's hand on to a paper bag and added a 3/4" seam allowance around it.  Then we created the thumb as per the instructions.

Time to make a mock up. We don't want to find out that the pattern needs adjusting after we cut the leather.  So we took some old material (yes, it was an old Halloween costume) and traced the pattern.

Then all three pieces for the one mitt were cut out and sewn together.  A mock up mitt. 

Trial one was way too small and the thumb was too long.  Trial two still pinched a bit and didn't quite flare enough to go over the parka.  Trial three seems just right!

 

 Now to work with the moose hide. We laid out our third pattern with the wider hand, shorter thumb and extra flare of the wrist.

We traced the pattern out.  Two fronts, two backs and two thumbs.  Making sure that each piece was traced correctly so that the good sides of the leather would all line up.

 

We cut out the pieces and voila!  Something that kind of resembles mittens. Now to sew them together with the awl.

 

Clothes pins worked very well to hold the pieces together as they were sewn up.

Ta-Da!   Leather mittens!  

 

Now to decide what fur to trim the cuffs with....