Vintage glove making sewing instructions and patterns

Do you want to learn how to sew lovely vintage gloves? There are lots of patterns for vintage knitted and crochet gloves out there, but here at Vintage Visage we have found some lovely patterns and instructions for you to make leather, suede or fabric gloves.

Making gloves is not an easy thing to do- you have to be fairly exact in your cutting out and of course its a bit fiddly when sewing as you have to go up and down the fingers- so its not a quick process either....Having said that, its perhaps not as complicated as you might fear. The first pattern that we have here dates from the 1940s and is for cotton pique gloves, which are nice and light to wear- and very often used to go with summer dresses or 'sunday best' clothes.

They have a very sweet turn up on the wrist and were usually made in white in the 1940s but of course today we can make them from any colour cotton, brights or pastels- they would look fab in bright printed floral or abstract cottons for a fun effect too.

The most difficult part of the making of any gloves, and perhaps the bit most feared by potential makers, is the cutting out of the fabric. This particular pattern comes with a gridded diagram to help you work out the shapes for the paper pattern pieces. Even so, there are still a fair few curves to cut. As ever though we don't want that to put you off, we like to encourage all of our customers to 'have a go'. Nothing was ever gained with out trying, and if you decide that you don't like sewing gloves then you have only lost an hour of your time. If however you decide that you do like making gloves...then you have a whole new skill and potential income.....

We would suggest that for your first pair of gloves that you make a 'trial' pair- that is, use some fabric such as calico or spare cotton, and really take your time to follow the instructions of how to cut and how to sew. Once you have made one pair, you can try them on to see how they fit. If they fit beautifully then you can carry on to your preferred fabric and make your first 'real ' pair. Most likely though, as with anything made, you may need to make a few 'tweaks'. It may be that the fingers of your trial pair are too long or too short for you, or you have sewn the fingers a little tight for your fingers to fit into. Don't worry if so- thats what the trial pair is for, to understand if adjustments need to be made. we all learn best though our mistakes! Don't forget that we all have different size and shaped hands too, so its pretty likely that they need a 'tweak'.

Once you have made this pair- you might like to try making these wonderful 1900s gloves and gauntlets too

or these button driving gloves