How to Make Extra Long Bondage Mittens

Working on these items for Karen Hsiao has given me an excuse to make several things I have wanted to produce for a while now. One of those things is a nice, tight-fitting pair of extra-long bondage mittens. My wife has particularly small wrists, so I have wanted to make a pair to fit her skin-tight all the way up the arm.

Because of the small wrist, you need to have some kind of opening for the hand to pass through. On old opera gloves, it was usually an opening with 3 buttons, but I am going to use a zipper for this project. I am making them out of a really gorgeous lamb leather from the Hide House in Nappa California.

Working with lamb can be kind of tricky, as it is very soft and stretchy. You have to use a lighter-weight needle than you would for cow hide, and it can be almost like working with tissue paper because it is so thin. But for a project like this, the stretch and sheen are going to make beautiful mittens.

I'm starting out with a pattern based on a previously-made mitten. But I've tapered in at the wrist a bit more, extended the length, and indicated placement of the zipper. The zip is starting just at the point at the forearm where the mitten will be too narrow to get the hand through, and ending in the palm of the hand.


I punch holes in the pattern to indicate the start and end points for the zipper.
Here I have all 4 main pieces cut out. The pattern is flopped for each side, as the halves are not symmetrical. You can see the hand is wider on the thumb side.
I also cut out 4 strips that will form the "lips" of the zipper opening. I don't know what you are supposed to call those things.
Since these will be one of the first things sewn-in, it's time to glue them up.
While the glue dries, I'll punch out the start and endpoints for the zipper.
Once the holes are punched, I carefully trim out between them with the x-acto knife. Go slow, use a fresh, sharp blade and a steel ruler to guide your cut.
Now our glued-up strips should be ready to fold in half. See, this is one of the things that makes lamb tricky - notice the strips want to curl up. A heavier leather would probably just lay flat, but the lamb has a mind of it's own. You have to put it in it's place.
We want to position those strips so they are centered on the openings we just cut.
Because that lamb has a tendency to curl, I use quite a bit of tape to secure it.
I am going to try and sew the zipper in at the same time as the lips, so I'm using double-sided tape to hold the zipper in position. I usually flip back and forth a bunch of times to check and recheck the position of the elements. Take your time here, as once it's sewn, it's sewn. There's no going back afterwards.
Here's the zip and lip in place:
You'll find with projects like these that you spend most of the time on the details - like this zipper. Sewing the actual mitten goes rather quickly, but the zipper takes forever!
Now we have the zipper sewn in, so we can remove all that tape, cut the zipper to size and singe the ends with a flame. Next, I want to put in a tongue, so the zipper won't press against the skin.
You want to make sure the tongue extends beyond the end of the zipper on both sides.
Held in place with a little tape, I stitch along side the previous row of stitches.
There we go. Now we have a nice, pretty tongue inside our zippered mittens.
Next, we trim the excess tongue to follow the contour of the mitten.
Finally, we're ready to sew the outside seam. This is pretty straightforward: just clip and sew.
And, stitching complete!
Now it's time to cut the little notches so we can glue down the seam allowance. Slits for inside curves, and little V-shaped notches for outside. Remember to not cut too close to the seam. Leave about 1/8 inch between your allowance cuts and your stitching.
Now it's time to glue up...
...both sides.
And press those seams flat. It is a pain to turn the mitten inside-out as the wrist is so small - this is about as small as you can go and still make it through. It is also a pain to turn down that edge because my hands are way too big to fit inside!

The last thing to do is glue down the seam at the top of the mitten. Taking a cue from some unlined vintage gloves I have seen, I won't bother topstitching that top seam. It looks great, and will stretch more over time that way.
That completes our bondage-mitten project. I am happy with them, and can't wait to see them on.
This is the kind of garment that will just get better-looking once it's worn a few times and broken in.
Until next time... thanks for visiting.