Gloves - A New Exploration

If you remember last September I participated in a purse making workshop taught by John Koch. Well, John is a jack of all trades. This winter John has offered glove and flower making workshops. I've bought at least four glove patterns, but was afraid to try them. John Koch dispelled all my fears when I attended his January glove making workshop. It was a day long hands on workshop were sewists had an opportunity to learn to make gloves.

When I came through the studio door, John's display table had dozens of beautifully, hand created gloves on exhibit. Many designs I would have never thought of. Each glove is entirely hand sewn using embroidery floss.

After the lecture, we were able to pick out fabric and thread for our very own pair of gloves. For each participant, a basic instruction book and patterns were provided. Getting started, John measured our hands using pre-made, pre-sized muslin gloves. It was an incredible experience.  We learnied about the various parts of the glove and how each part may need to be sized differently based on your hand and the style of glove you want to make.

The basic parts of a glove are the trank, thumb, and fourchettes. Each part can be reshaped and sized accordingly. My first pair of gloves is nothing fancy, but is the starting point of making beautiful gloves. This pair is standard with kind of blunt finger tips, size MM (medium trank and thumb). Next pair, I need to extend the thumb about 1/4" for a slightly better fit. I can also choose to get a little fancy, like the ones John made. Not too much too fast. A little at a time.

I'm certainly glad I was able to take advantage of the glove making class. And if you are in the Chicago land area and have four to six people who want to learn how to make them, Give John and call to schedule a workshop.

Janice - Thanks for the pictures. (I'm always forgetting my camera.)

Happy Sewing!
C