Guest Tutorial: Hating Martha with Creature Mittens

I want to introduce you to Hating Martha Blog. She has a fun creature mitten tutorial to share with all of you.  Make sure to stop by her blog and say hello!  Thanks again for sharing with my readers Janel!

Hi all! I am skipping about with excitement at being here at A Vision to Remember! Thanks so much to Bobbie to having me! I am Janel and I have a little ol' blog called Hating Martha. It's chock full of imperfect crafts, okay recipes, and loads of fun. I would love you all to stop by and say hi sometime...I promise to be on my best behavior! I want to show you a fun little craft I did recently for a birthday gift. It was for a friend of my 13 year old daughter. It isn't perfect, in fact I won't score any points in the sewing department. But, it scored lots of points in the cool factor and that's something isn't it?

I started with an old sweater that was on it's way to the donation box.

The cable pattern and little tab closures were perfect for this.

Any old sweater you have will work perfectly.

I used another mitten I liked to get a shape. 

I just pinned around that mitten. Yep, real technical.

I used the bottom hem of the sweater as the bottom of the mitten. I strongly advise trying to do this so you don't have to mess with hemming. It just looks nicer.

Please remember you need a total of 4. I know from experience that you can forget.

It's preferable to have a pair of mittens. At least that's what I hear :).

This is what you should end up with after cutting them out (times 2)

Next up, spikes.

I used felt for this. Drew a design and cut it out.

On that bottom line I folded the felt over so it and then cut the design.

You get something like this.

You need to run across the bottom with the sewing machine or fabric glue to get the shape to hold.

And then sew it on to the top of your mittens. 

Run your stitching thru the middle.

I was making a girl and a boy so I used buttons that matched that idea.

Pink for the girl, sailor for the boy.

Just sew those on to the tops of your mittens.

You should end up with something like this...

Right about here you really could call it okay and sew those up. 

But, my daughter wanted me to jazz these up a bit.

So, a mustache for the boy needed to happen.

I wrapped black yarn around my two fingers several times, then sewed the bunch onto the mittens.

Once they were all sewn on nice and tight I cut the bottom loops to make it mustachey.

What you don't see and I forgot to take pictures of was...

Adding some pink felt lips to the girl. (cut out lips and sew them on before you sew up the mittens)

Adding black eyeballs with sharpies to the buttons.

 Okay, now that you have your crazy additions done you can sew those up. Turn right sides together and sew up along the edges. If you have a mustache, be sure to tuck it in so it doesn't get sewn into the mittens. (I never thought I would use that sentence in my life :))

Turn them out and tada! How cute are these. In a sad, unfortunate kind of way.

I think they look more like puppets.

No matter, my daughter thinks they are sooo cool!

My daughter attacked the spikes with green puffy paint. 

I should mention that I used those tab closures from the sweater on the back of the mittens to allow them to be attached together. It was a lucky, fun extra.

There you have it...a quick and simple gift that pleases even a teenager. Thanks for having me Bobbie!

And you all, don't forget to stop by sometime and say hi!