18th century leather and silk mitts

I love making accessories.  I needed some mitts or gloves for an upper class impression in the coming week and so I decided to knock out a pair of mitts.

Let's look at some extants:

Leather with herringbone embroidery

Leather with embroidery

Let's look at what was available in the colonies:

New York 1771:  Lamb and kid gloves and mitts in black, white and purple

Philadelphia 1776:  worsted, thread, cotton, kid, beaver Italian lamb and silk mitts.

These ads are consistent with all the others I looked at from 1771 - 1785 in Boston, Connecticut, Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore.

Let's look at a some portraits:

1766 (Copley)  Plain white silk or leather mitts

1770s--Princess Maria Luisa of Spain--white silk or leather mitts lined with gray silk

1784 (Ralph Earl)  Gray mitts lined with silk

Let this be a word to the wise--do NOT choose leather when time if of the essence.  Working with leather is time intensive and really hard on the fingers--as anyone who has ever bound stays with leather can attest.

I had made a fairly fancy pair of linen mitts a while back that you can see here.

I decided to make these a little plainer by sewing a side seam instead of having the faggotting open work.

First of all--to work with leather you need:  1 oz. glove weight kid, goat or lamb skin,  silk thread, leather hand sewing needles size 10 - 12 (I like 12 but they do bend easily), leather machine sewing needles if needed,  leather contact cement, seam roller, needle grippers/pullers

Things to know--You do NOT pin leather.  This can make things a little tricky.  I've used a number of methods to secure seams when sewing:  paper clips, quilting clips, scotch tape.

Hems are glued and seam allowances are glued flat.

I decided to line my mitts of white sheepskin with yellow silk taffeta to go with a hat I had just finished.

First I made my lining. I basically just made a pair of yellow taffeta mitts but left the edges raw.

Next, I cut the leather mitts.The stretch of the leather skin runs perpendicular to the spine so keep that in mind when placing your pattern on the leather and remember that you cut one mitt at a time, flipping the pattern for the second mitt.  I worked the herringbone embroidery using 1 strand of Soie d'Alger stranded silk embroidery floss.  It has 7 strands that you separate.  This was a time consuming process--taking me probably 3 times longer than fabric mitts would've.  First of all--it's easiest to NOT stitch all the way through the leather.  I took the first and last stitches all the way through so that the knots could be secured on the wrong side.  I made the herringbone stitches through the top layer of the leather skin.  This was a little easier on my hands.  I used a needle grip pad to push the needle into the leather and pull it out.

Once the embroidery was complete, I turned under the seam allowance on the thumb opening.  This is where your seam roller and contact cement come in handy.  I had run out of my usual leather cement which is similar to rubber cement.  I found this one, called Tear Mender, on Amazon.  It remains flexible after drying,  Rather than use the squirt bottle, I squirted a tiny puddle of the glue on a piece of foil and dabbed it in the seam allowances with a tooth pick then folded the allowance over.  Care must be taken because this is contact cement.  It grips on contact so there's no repositioning.  I found it helpful to fold and crease the allowance before applying the glue

Next I made the thumbs.  I decided to stitch the straight seams on the machine using Schmetz Size 10 leather needles.  Then I turned under the top and bottom seam allowance, creased and glued them,

There's really no way to secure the thumb piece to the mitt when stitching.  You can't pin it and it's too small to clamp.  I used super fine silk thread and whip stitched the thumbs to the mitts continuing to check the fit as I went along.

Next I covered the thumb seam with herringbone embroidery--just going through the top layers of the leather as before.

I machine stitched the side seams of the mitts, used the seam roller to press the seam open and dabbed contact cement on the seam allowances to keep them flat.  Then I inserted the lining into the leather mitts, folded the lining thumb hem in and the top edge hem in, finger pressed them and secured them with clips.

Using super fine silk thread, I whip stitched the silk in place just catching the outer layer of the leather.

I finished the bottom edge of the mitts the same way.

Here's what they look like at this point:

One strand of silk floss was used for the herringbone edge stitching on both the top and bottom edges of the mitts.

I'm still undecided as to whether or not to add herringbone edge stitching to the thumb hems.

Here are the competed mitts:

I'm pleased as punch with these but my fingers are SORE!  Next pair of leather mitts will be made over time way in advance of when they are needed!  I could've completed silk ones with faggotted seams in the same amount or less time.

I'm glad I made these though.  Silk lined leather will be warm but still dressy in the winter.

Edit:  I did go back and embroider those thumbs!