These little toy oven mitts are the perfect gift for any kid who likes playing with toy foods! They add a finishing touch to any toy kitchen setup, providing hours of fun :-D. I made them for my little siblings; they love them!

This project is quite simple to make; it just requires basic machine sewing, and drawing an oven mitt shape.

First, a necessary disclaimer:

WARNING: This project is a toy, and is NOT designed for use at high temperatures. Attempting to use for actual cooking may result in serious burns.

Step 1: What You Need

To make this project, you just need about a quarter yard of fleece, and about a half yard of medium-weight fabric (not sheer, not really thick like denim). The exact quantities depend on the size of the oven mitts, but in general it's a pretty good project for using leftover fabric from other projects.

You'll also need a pencil and paper, a spool of black or coordinating thread, scissors, a chalk pencil (or light-colored sewing pencil, or white colored pencil) if your fabric is dark, and a sewing machine (well, maybe you have the patience to sew it by hand; I don't! XD). Pins, a small rotary cutter, a transparent ruler, and a cutting mat also come in handy, but aren't crucial to the project.

Step 2: Draw the Shape

I started the shape by having the kids put their hand on a paper in a mitten-ish shape, and tracing that. If you don't have the kid's hand handy, you could estimate the size using one of their gloves or something.

Then draw the mitt shape around the hand shape. It may help to look at a real oven mitt, but the most important thing for making it look oven-mitt-like is to have the shape of the mitt go straight down from the tip of the thumb, not back inward around the thumb, like a mitten. Picture 4 shows my first attempt, which had the mitten-like thumb shaping, and was rather difficult to put on and take off. You want a wide wrist, so the mitt can be easily slipped on and off.

Remember that the completed mitt will look somewhat smaller than the flat shapes, so try to make them a little bigger than you feel they should be. It's better to have a mitt that's a little big, than one that's too tight (especially if you consider growing room). In fact, I ended up not using the smaller shape, but made them all in the bigger size, and it worked fine even for the smaller kid.

When you're satisfied with the shape, cut it out.

Step 3: Cut Out All the Pieces

Trace the paper mitt shape onto the fleece material. In this case, I decided to make it a little longer than the paper shape, which was a simple matter of extending the lines. Then cut out two mitt shapes along the traced lines. For mine, I cut out one, then laid in on the fleece and cut around it, but you could also trace the paper twice.

Then lay the fleece shape on your fabric, and make a line about a half inch out from it. This will be your seam allowance. A transparent ruler helps for doing this more accurately. As with the fleece, you'll need two shapes, but be careful! If your fabric has distinct right and wrong sides, make sure the thumbs face opposite directions when the right sides face up! Line the fleece shapes up with the fabric ones, and cut a line from the indent in the outline at the thumb, to the point in the fleece shape where the thumb and palm meet.

You should end up with two fleece shapes about the size of the paper, and two somewhat bigger fabric shapes, that are roughly mirror images of each other.

Step 4: Quilt the Pieces

If you've never quilted anything before, don't let the word "quilting" scare you! All we're doing is making a pattern of sewn lines on each side of the mitt, to secure the fabric and padding together, and make a nice texture.

Pin the fleece shape in place on the fabric one (I did my last one without pins, as the fleece kinda grips the fabric anyway, but pinning helps make sure it stays in place). Then decide on a pattern; generally a simple pattern of criss-crossing or parallel lines will look most like a normal oven mitt. You can lightly draw the pattern on the fabric with a washable pencil, or just use a strip of paper as a guide to make straight, evenly spaced lines, like I did. Sew along the desired lines.

Make sure the fleece shape is on the wrong (non-printed) side of the fabric! If the fabric is basically the same on both sides, make sure the thumbs point opposite directions when the fleece shapes are facing up. It's rather frustrating to find out, after you've quilted the pieces together, that no matter how you try to assemble it, one of the pieces has the padding on the outside. Yes, that happened.

You will also finish the bottom edge in this step. This can be done before or after the overall quilting; if you do it before, you can stop the quilting lines at the bottom edge line, to give the illusion of a binding. It just depends on which look you prefer; picture 4 shows a comparison of both. Anyway, just fold the bottom edge of the fabric over the fleece. If it's a raw edge, fold the edge under a bit; I did mine on the selvage, so it didn't need the additional fold, but otherwise it will be needed to prevent unraveling. Pin in place, if desired, and sew it down.

Step 5: Final Assembly

Pin the two mitt shapes right sides together, with the fleece padding facing out. Then sew around the fleece shape.

Then snip little indents in the seam allowance of the curved parts (ends of fingers and thumb), being careful not to cut through the seam. This will help it lie flat when it's turned right-side-out. Then sew a zig-zag all around the mitten shape, right next to the sewn line, to reinforce the seam. Trim the seam allowance just outside the zig-zag (to reduce bulk inside the mitt). Then, turn the mitt right-side out. And it's done!

Step 6: Have Fun!

My little siblings were very excited about their new toy oven mitts; hopefully the kids in your life will be too! You could make or buy a little apron to go with it, for a fun gift set! (Just make sure everyone knows the mitts are just a toy!)

If you make this project; I'd love to see pictures! And if you want further explanation on any point, please let me know in the comments, and I'll do my best to clarify.

Have fun! :-D