Have you got socks that you love but that have developed holes in the soles? It’s really easy to turn them into cozy fingerless gloves like these, especially if they’re long and fluffy.

1. Find some old socks

I love FatFace socks and particularly the fluffy ones with lovely deep colours that go with the rest of my clothes. Some are really long like these. And of course they develop holes.

It always feels such a shame to throw them out when the vast majority of the sock is still fluffy. So, because I also really love fingerless gloves, I’ve taken to using old socks like these to make them.

2. Cut off the feet

Socks have two parts to them, the feet and the long bit that go up your leg. The join between the two parts that gives them the angle that enables them to fit well, is just at the heel, helpfully highlighted in a different colour on these socks.

If you cut just above that join, you can cut a nice straight line across. It’s particularly easy with these socks because they have a stripe in the pattern to help guide you!

You can see after you’ve cut the foot away how a bend is introduced into socks.

Once the foot is removed you have a nice tube that forms the basis of your fingerless glove.

3. Add a thumb hole

Now it’s time to turn your attention to the top of the sock. Fold the tube so that you get the pattern to where you’d like it on the back of your hand. This sock has a fairly indistinct FatFace logo on it which I’m trying to position in the middle of the back of my hand.

You need to assess where to put your thumb hole based on the shape of your hand and how far along your fingers you want the glove to go when it’s on. I like mine to just cover my knuckles. Make a note of where your thumb needs to emerge from the glove. With these gloves it’s really easy because the pattern around the top coincides with where I want to put my thumb.

Now you need to make a vertical slit along the fold at the side of the soon-to-be-glove where your thumb should come out. Take that fold and pinch it vertically so that the middle is where your thumb should emerge.

Cut about 1.5cm down into that pinch of fabric to make the vertical hole. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bit small, so err on the side of not cutting as much as that.

Try on the glove to see whether the thumb hole is big enough. You can always cut a bit more up or down that slit to make it bigger.

That’s it! You’ve made your glove. No sewing required for these because the material is fleecy and doesn’t realy fray (and even if it does, you’ve just got double-life out of your socks!)

This post is dedicated to everyone at UKGovCamp 2016, especially Janet, Zaheda and Jacqui.