This Insturctable shows how to make mittens out of surplus wool army blankets. This is nothing new except we are using a silk screened pattern called The Interlachen Blanket. You don't have to use this, there are easy patterns on the internet and surplus blankets are a good place to get yards of cheap wool, much cheaper in fact than even the discount fabric store. We are going to show how to use old sewing machine and finishing by hand with the blanket stitch.

Step 1: The Pattern

We found some old pattern on the internet and tested it, changed it a little in illustrator and made the interlachen blanket pattern. Then we silk screened the pattern onto the fabric. I have never been good at cutting out fabric patterns because I am a carpenter I want to make marks and cut to the marks - paper patterns move too much for my taste. With wool blankets it's kind of hard to mark so I thought why not print the pattern right on the material so that's what we did. To get started with Interlachen, we just used patterns of the internet printed them piece by piece on legal sized paper (8.5"x14") and cut and sewed them up.

To cut a pattern I highly reccomend a rotery cutter they are amazing. However they need a good surface to cut against and then you are buying stuff and there goes the budget. If you are going to get into fashion buy a cutting mat like the one in the pictures and a rotary cutter and you will never be sorry!

Place a heavy weight on the pattern piece and carefully cut around the paper pattern trying not to pull the material out from underneath or move the pattern piece.

Step 2: Sewing

You can sew a pair of mittens with any old machine. In some cases older machines are more robust and easier. Danielle uses an old mercury strait stitch and a Phaf hobby machine regularly. With something like a mitten which has a small number of lineal feet of stitching you can even quickly hand stitch them. We just used the decorative blanket stitch with black embroidery floss on the cuffs.

Since there are two layers to our mitten pattern we decided to make the outer layer with the seams in and the inner layer with the seams out. What this means is you sew both layers inside out and only the outer layer gets flipped, then you put the inside in and hem up the cuff. This is where we used the decorative blanket stitch.

If your mittens are too large it is easy to fix it, make a note of where and stitch inside the original stitch. If they are too small try stretching them out a little maybe iron them, still too small start a new pair and give them to a friend with smaller hands:-)

Step 3: Other Thoughts and Ideas About Your New Mittens.

First mittens are a great first sewing project. I am useless on a sewing machine. Really I should do an instructable just about how someone who loves table saws can even approach a sewing machine. For years I have fixed timing and broken parts on Danielle's machines but I am still no good at making anything on them. I feel like on this project I turned the corner, I cut and sewed up a pair of usable mittens in a half hour. They are just big enough to fit some work gloves under them which is the best of both worlds.

You can make mittens fast and easy out of so many scrap materials.

Third if you need a fun and easy pattern check our our kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1640002012/int... and after it ends www.interlachengear.com

We are happy to answer questions on the process!