Beautifully Tarnished: Mitten Ornaments

One of my most favorite ornaments hanging on our tree are these cute mittens I made a few years ago. I made one pair for each person in our family… they are all different just like each of us (except I don’t have a pair for our youngest… it was before her time, so I need to make one more pair)

And… I made them so you can open them just like mittens… with the intent of coming up with a clever plan to put something creative inside for Christmas, but no inspiration has come to me yet… hopefully I will get inspired before our kids are all grown and gone.

These mittens are super easy to make!

this is what I used:

~ any pattern of a mitten

~ felt

~small piece of flannel (for the cuff part)

~ embroidery floss or yarn

~ twine

First, print out the mitten pattern and cut it out. Then, for 1 pair of mittens cut out 4 mitten pieces (2 for each mitten) out of the felt.

And cut 4 strips of flannel for the cuff part of the mitten.

Next, place a flannel strip on each mitten piece and whip stitch the flannel piece to the felt along the middle edge of the flannel…

After all the flannel pieces are stitched to the felt mitten pieces…

then there is the option of adding a snowflake or whatever design to the middle of the mitten.

I chose a snowflake because they are basic and easy… take each of the mitten pieces individually and sew a small snowflake in the middle.

When the snowflakes are all done…

now we can put the two sides together.

Take 2 mitten pieces and place them together (right sides out)… start at one of the corners of the cuff, using the blanket stitch, stitch around the mitten (leaving the cuff opening for last).

I wanted my mittens to open at the top so I stitched around each side of the top (making sure to stitch the flannel strip to the felt), but if you don’t want the top to be open then just keep stitching both sides together at the top.

To hold the pair of mittens together I used a piece of twine and stitched it to the inside edge of each mitten.

If you don’t know how to blanket stitch there are some great videos on youtube.com