"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."
- Desmond Tutu
Every year as Christmas approaches, my mind turns to deciding what to make for my daughters. This year I'd begun making them reusable round cotton flannel wipes, when they surprised me during a Thanksgiving visit when they both asked me to make mittens like the ones I was wearing.
Thanks to the pandemic and retirement, I've had some extra time to play around with some sewing projects. Last winter, holed up at home, I decided to make myself some new mittens from old sweaters I hadn't worn in awhile. The idea of making something new from something used, fits well into the concept of reusing what we have that my parents taught me and my brothers. My mom, a piano teacher, and master seamstress, made me a tiny tan winter coat with a brown velvet collar from a coat she'd worn for years. Dad, a biologist, made a bed for me from the wood he'd been saving in his shop, complete with drawers underneath and a shelf that pulled out for my nighttime water glass.
When our youngest daughter was four, I took a tailoring course and made a red wool blazer. With the leftover fabric, I made a coat for her with a black velvet collar and covered buttons. That was the beginning of my real love for upcycling.
Fast forward to the present when I realized I'd acquired three lightweight merino wool sweaters -- two in green and one in gray. The first one had become misshapen so when I saw them on clearance, I'd ordered two more. After at least five years of wear, they all looked a bit worn. And thanks to the pandemic, working from home for much of a year had meant living in running tights and sweatshirts. There was little need for the sweaters.
Using a pattern I downloaded from the internet, I cut up one of the green sweaters. Rather than making a single layer, I made double layers. I added a cuff and here's what I ended up. Note that I've worn these a lot over the past year, because they're perfect for biking outside especially in the cool early mornings.
Honestly, I was surprised that they liked the mittens and requested their own, and that I've gotten more compliments from random strangers on these than on any other item I've sewn in years. I thought of those two other sweaters -- one green and one gray -- and set about making them each a pair. Of course, that left me with some random scraps of the sweaters and for some reason, I just couldn't throw them out.
So...during my continuing efforts to re-organize my sewing room, I decided to try to squeak out another pair for myself -- with a couple of creative adjustments. With not quite enough of either color to make two layers, I cut one layer from gray and the other layer from green, with two-sided cuffs, for a reversible pair.
This took longer than expected because I cut the green layers across the grain so the thumbs stretched vertically rather than horizontally. I ended up cutting off the thumbs, cutting new ones and piecing them into place. In the end, I think they turned pretty well!
