How to make quick, 3 minute, no sew, mitten strings

This morning on our mad dash out the door I decided that Leah (my 2-3/4 year old… yes, the 3/4 makes a difference) needed strings attached to her mittens so she didn’t lose them at daycare. I don’t have any mitten strings.  I’ve never made mitten strings.  And I certainly didn’t have time to make anything fancy or to pull out a needle and thread.  So in my rush, I threw together these three minute, no sew mitten strings, and they worked like a charm!

These quick mitten strings took me literally 3 minutes and involved zero sewing. I ran up to the sewing room, grabbed some yarn, some scissors and some safety pins and whipped them up.

Materials:

• yarn (or ribbon, or twine)


• 2 safety pins


• scissors

Instructions:

1. Cut the yarn (or ribbon, or twine) an appropriate length.  I guessed on the length and the mitten string turned out to be slightly too long, but it worked.  She’ll grow.  😉

(Note, the second time I did this I made the string 38” long and it worked out perfectly)

2. If using yarn, cut three pieces the same length and make a knot at both ends. If you have 2 extra minutes, loosely braid the three pieces.

3. Pin one safety pin through the knot.

4. Attach the yarn to the inside of the mitten on the top side.

5. Repeat for the other end of the yarn.

6. Pull the mittens and mitten string through your child’s jacket and voila!  (I had to take the jacket off of her to do this since I had already gotten her dressed to leave before I started this project, so that slowed me down. Mental note – next time try to plan this when your husband and toddler are not running out the door.)

And in case you are wondering, the pictures are a re-enactment of this project.  I did NOT have time to capture this useful solution while it was happening.  😉

How to make mitten strings safer?

If you are worried about the safety of mitten strings, stitch the mitten string to the inside of your child’s jacket at its midpoint (or even at several points).  This is a simple solution to help make sure your child will never be able to remove them.

Or if you want to be even safer, instead of one long mitten string, make two 6″ mitten strings and safety pin (or sew) them to the inside of the sleeve of the jacket.  That way you won’t have any long strings to worry about.

Source : onelittleproject.com
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