Make Some Oven Mitts

It's easy!  Really, it is.  Don't be intimidated by all the layers and cutting required. Oven mitts really are pretty easy to make.  Because if they weren't, I don't think I could have made these.  And if they weren't easy to make, mine wouldn't have come out nice enough that everyone who has seen them requests that I make a pair for them.  I foresee lots of oven mitts being made and gifted this year.  :0)

These new oven mitts came about because my favorite pair of oven mitts finally bit the dust.  I guess it was about time; I mean, these were my original pair purchased summer of 1991 when I moved out of my parents' home and into dh and my own.  They aren't the only oven mitts I've owned in the past 25 years, but they were, by far, the best pair. I finally gave up on finding a commercially made new pair sometime around when we moved to this little place here in 2003.  Because by then I had bought at least two pair of oven mitts and each time hated them because they did not keep my hands from getting hot when taking cookie sheets or baking dishes out of the oven.  I decided that when the time came that my circa 1991 wedgewood blue oven mitts not longer protected my hands, I would just have to make a pair.

Well, February was the time.  Those blue ones were so worn thin that I had to use a hot pad in addition to my oven mitt when removing hot things from the oven.  And then the fabric on the finger part of one mitt tore due to being so old and worn.  Time to bite the bullet and try sewing some new ones!

I had everything I needed on hand: warm & natural batting, insul-bright (the key ingredient in oven mitts that keeps the heat from your skin), and fabric.  I had enough scrap fabric left from the chicken apron I had made myself a few years ago that my plan was to make myself matching oven mitts.

For a pattern, I just traced my blue oven mitt, plus 1/2" all around.  Then for each mitt, using this template, I cut two each of:

• insul-bright
• warm & natural batting
• chicken fabric (the outer fabric)
• a blue and green floral fabric I had saved from a dress I had made DD2 as a toddler (for the lining)

From there, I put the walking foot on my sewing machine so that I could easily sew 4 layers together without anything bunching up.  Then I layered my pieces like this:

• chicken fabric right side DOWN
• insul-bright, shiny side DOWN
• warm & natural batting
• lining fabric right side UP

I pinned them into place, then sewed diagonal lines about an inch and a half apart across the entire thing.  Once each piece (two pieces per oven mitt) had been quilted as such, then I zigzagged around the edges of each piece.  After that, I sewed bias tape**  to the bottoms of each mitt piece.

After that, all I needed to do was take my two pieces, line them up with chicken fabrics facing each other, and zigzag the edges again.  Turn them right side out, and I had brand new oven mitts!

They work really well, although I think size-wise they are better suited to a woman's hand than a man's.  Due to popular demand, I am planning to make a few more pair to give as gifts this year, so I had DS2 try them on one day that he stopped by, and he confirmed they were a little snug--not tight, just not roomy--on his wider hands.  So, since I didn't think to take pictures of the construction process when making my chicken mitts, I decided to go ahead and make a pair for him, adding a full inch all around when tracing my old oven mitts to make the pattern for his (and all future pair).  Then I took some pictures of what I was doing.

making the template, then cutting out the insul-bright

the warm & natural pieces

feature fabric, right side DOWN

(see? It is right side down, hard to tell in first picture)

insul-bright on top of feature fabric

(shiny side really is down, flash made this side look shiny too)

warm & natural on top of insul-bright

lining fabric right side UP, on top of warm & natural

making the quilting

That is as far as I have gotten so far, but not a whole lot left to do: zigzag the edges, make and sew on the bias tape, put the top and bottom mitt pieces together and sew around the edges (except the bottoms, which is finished by the bias tape).  They'll be done in time for DS2's birthday later this month.


**(I made double-fold bias tape by cutting 2" strips of the chicken fabric, sewing them short end to short end, folding that in half and ironing, then opening it outward, folding and ironing each edge to the center fold line)