I mentioned in a much earlier post (HERE) that gloves or mittens would come in very handy for handling some of the plants around here, such as poison ivy. They are also essential, of course, for keeping warm. I decided to make a pair of medieval split mittens as seen in the Luttrell Psalter.
 Luttrell Psalter |  Detail from the Tübingen house book, 15th Century Getrmany (link for the manuscript - http://idb.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/opendigi/Md2#p=282 ) |
The Luttrell Psalter shows both solid colored mittens and those that are particolored. The Tübingen house book has an image of mittens that show fur at the bottom edge. I think many (or most) of these split mittens were likely crafted out of pelts with fur/wool on the inside. This very much simplifies the construction, as you can do butted seams with the edges of the leather, and there are no bulky seam allowances to worry about.
I do not have a pelt I can currently cut up, and I am still trying to use items from my stash as much as possible for my projects, so I choose to work in wool. I have some lovely coating weight wool with a heavily brushed (and warm!) surface on one side. This cloth will fray, but not readily as it is well fulled. This means that, while sturdy, I cannot rely on a butted seam for the construction. This presented some issues as I need seam allowances and to get that in the the split of the mitten I would need to have the finger chambers angled awkwardly outwards. A gusset in the split could work, but not for my tiny hands because it again creates bulky seams too close together.
My solution was to treat the mittens as I think the parti-colored option could be constructed, and add a seam down the center to join the two halves of the mitten.
I used the basic pattern from Medieval Tailor's Assistant and eliminated the gusset and added the center seam. I did my first test in some heavy synthetic fleece, recrafted the pattern to fit my hand and worked one up in the wool. That still was not quite right, so I worked from that to create a thir pattern from which I made my final gloves. I am very pleased with the results and might eventually make a parti-colored pair!
Don't sew and need mittens? Historic Enterprises also sells split mittens!
I do not have a pelt I can currently cut up, and I am still trying to use items from my stash as much as possible for my projects, so I choose to work in wool. I have some lovely coating weight wool with a heavily brushed (and warm!) surface on one side. This cloth will fray, but not readily as it is well fulled. This means that, while sturdy, I cannot rely on a butted seam for the construction. This presented some issues as I need seam allowances and to get that in the the split of the mitten I would need to have the finger chambers angled awkwardly outwards. A gusset in the split could work, but not for my tiny hands because it again creates bulky seams too close together.
My solution was to treat the mittens as I think the parti-colored option could be constructed, and add a seam down the center to join the two halves of the mitten.
I used the basic pattern from Medieval Tailor's Assistant and eliminated the gusset and added the center seam. I did my first test in some heavy synthetic fleece, recrafted the pattern to fit my hand and worked one up in the wool. That still was not quite right, so I worked from that to create a thir pattern from which I made my final gloves. I am very pleased with the results and might eventually make a parti-colored pair!
Don't sew and need mittens? Historic Enterprises also sells split mittens!
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