[Anonymous]

I’m sick of trying to get mittens on my toddler! It’s so hard to try to shove his hand in and make sure his thumb ends up in the thumb spot.

I’m sure I’ve seen some place a mitten where you can open up the back to lay the child’s hand in, then fold it back over and velcro it down to keep it in place. Can you picture it? I could try to draw a picture of what I mean . . .

It seems like it ought to be relatively straightforward to draft this, but I can’t find a pattern like this or a tutorial to adjust a pattern. Has anyone ever seen such a mitten pattern?

Thanks!

[Lightning McStitch]

Not a pattern as such, but you know it could be done with the LTTS mittens.
I’m imagining a glove a bit like a golf or cycling glove with the keyhole shaped cut out on the back of the hand.
Instead of doing an elastic casing as per the pattern you could make the wrist part of the mitten a bit shorter.
Then chop out a curve from the back of the hand, and finish that with bias binding.
Then apply a bias bound style edge finish around the raw edge of the mitten, extending across the open section and closing with Velcro or a snap.
That would be the easiest way I can immediately think off, but of course the open back doesn’t really suit a winter mitten does it?….
It’s do-able. If it wasn’t summer here I’d get carried away with the idea and have a go for you. too many other projects on the boil though. Good luck. let us know what you do in the end.

[Robin]

http://www.landsend.com/products/toddler-stormer-mittens/id_257486
What about these from Land’s End? They’re no longer for sale, and the reviews are sketchy, but the picture might be enough to get you started. I swear Sophie had a pair like these and I loved them.

[Anonymous]

Robin: I had a mitten that was sort of like the Land’s End one, except with a zipper, but it didn’t give me a wide enough opening, so it was still hard to get his hands in. It sounds like the LE one had that same problem.

I almost hate to post these pictures of my prototype (based, of course, on the LTTS mitten), but I’m going to be brave and trust that you all understand the difficulties of working with fleece when you’re sewing quickly.

I decided to put in a gusset so there wouldn’t be any opening. It’s just a lightweight bamboo jersey, but still better than nothing.
Here are my changes for the next version. Any thoughts? Especially on the wrist tightening. Lightening McStitch: just tapering it at the wrist doesn’t seem like enough, though it would definitely help. Could I still sew on the elastic and casing as in the original mitten, but just on the flat, opened out mitten?

For next version:

Changes:
1. Fix fit. Seems too wide and possibly too long for my small person.
2. Change fabric: this fleece is too lofty to work with my sewing machine. I have a less lofty fleece that will work better. Or I may look for a wool sweater to felt from the thrift store.
3. Do not bind any of the gusset in with wrist.
4. Figure out how to tighten down the wrist area. In the original mittens, the wrist was drawn in with elastic. I suppose I could still do that.
5. Don’t bind wrist with FOE. Do the original zigzag edge.
6. Plan ahead to sew the velcro tabs into the mitten/gusset seam.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, pictures were too large. Second attempt.

[brenda1652]

this is an old timey thing I did when my kids were little, no sewing involved. They learned The Mitten Song…”thumb in the thumb’s place, fingers all together…..” and so on. I also taught this song to the 2 yr old nursery school group waay back. They loved it, caught on quickly and took pride on locating that thumb into the Thumb’s Place. Younger than 2, no thumb place issue, I just slipped their little hands into the mittens and if the thumb made its way into the thumb place so be it, otherwise the kids really didn’t mind that they had fingers and thumbs together so long as their hands stayed warm. Perhaps The Mitten Song is on Youtube?

[brenda1652]

and here it is! When singing, make hands into a mittens shape, wiggle thumbs when “The Thumb Place” is sung, then just move hands back and forth (or whatever) as you sing, so long as they stay in “mitten formation” ! As usual, when attempting to teach this skill to toddlers, just start singing the song and doing the hand movements yourself at any old time, or all the time(!!)they soon will join in, no issues, just fun. Remember to sing it as you put your own mittens on, wiggling your thumb when it finds the right place. As much as I enjoy sewing, this is more fun than trying to change up a mittens pattern, at least I think so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcJmDwLYfO4

[Nicole]

That is simply lovely!