Yesterday I shared with you the dress-up aprons I made for the granddaughters to play Elsa, the Snow Queen from the movie Frozen. I decided they also needed some accessories for their outfits.

First of all, I tried making gloves. I’ve never made gloves before and have decided glove making is not for the faint of heart. It is definitely an art. There were even guilds dedicated to the art of glove making in the middle ages. For an interesting history of gloves read about the styles and significance of gloves here and read about the customs and symbolism of gloves here. There are even special glove sewing machines available now.

For my glove making adventure, I chose to cut up a cotton t-shirt. I drew a hand shape, cut out the pieces and tried to sew them together with a very small seam. I tried several of the presser feet that go with my machine and found that the fabric would not feed through the machine very well to sew such a close seam. I still have not learned what all the feet can do. I’m not sure that the one that I finally used was for this purpose, but it worked, and that’s what counts. I used my edger presser foot with the needle set to the left side and sewed a 1/8″ seam.

The gloves look kind of strange and I am not sure the girl’s hands will fit in them, but we will soon find out.

Then I tried to make gloves the “real” way with gussets. This is the pattern I used. I ended up sewing most of the finger area by hand because it seemed too complicated trying to use the machine. These might fit the youngest girl’s hands. I added some design on the back of the gloves with slick fabric paint.

So if neither of these gloves will fit the girls, I sprayed a pair of white gloves (that I already had) with turquoise fabric ink to make them look somewhat frosty. I have another backup pair that can be sprayed if need be for another pair.

My conclusion in trying to make gloves is that I don’t plan on going into the glove making business! But I tried.

The other accessories I made were white hair braids from yarn which I sewed to a hair comb. I wove some fancy ribbon through each braid to give a little sparkle.

And of course, Elsa needs a snowflake necklace to wear, so I made some with polymer clay.

I can’t wait to see the girls’ response to the dress-up outfits. Usually when I am sewing something, I am trying things on them as I go. Now I have to wait!