Heres a pretty simple way to make yourself a good sturdy pair of fur mittens. Otter and beaver is a great combo. This otter has a snare burn and the beaver has some rubs but plenty of nice fur for 2 -3 pairs of mittens.

First get some deerskin chopper shells with the seam on the outside. That is what you whip stitch the otter onto. Beef hide shells are cheaper but deerskin is so much nicer.

Trace the outline of each mitt for a pattern. Doesnt have to be perfect, just good and close. Cut the otter shorter than the whole mitten length to leave room for the strip of beaver for the cuff.

Use a glovers needle and dental floss or braided fishing line. Glovers needles have a sharp, triangular point for cutting through the tough leather.

Use fleece or wool liners and you've got some nice warm sturdy fur mittens.

Merry Christmas!

Very nice Drasselt-merry Christmas.

Cool! Been wanting to do something like that for a while

I decided to block the beaver so I wet it down and split out the leg holes, stretched it some, and pinned it down to dry. That will make cutting strips for the cuffs easier plus it will make it easier to work around the rubs. Once I stretched it the marks from the round knife at the tannery became apparent.
The otter I decided to split up each side in order to leave the silvery belly whole and the darker back intact so the fur on each mitten matches better. Otter leather is heavy enough and tough enough that there is no problem using the belly straight up. Of course a lot of critter the belly leather is too thin to hold a stitch reliably without tearing out. I'll block the otter as well.

Many thanks Drasselt. That looks almost foolproof. Should be relegated to the archives so idiots like me can find it next year (or tomorrow).

Jack

Tom,

I sure concur about using deer skin instead of cow hide for the choppers.

After it gets wet. the cow hide dries as hard as a rock. Deer skin is easy to re-soften.

Sure, there is a cost difference. But it is well worth it. Be it choppers or just gloves. It's no contest...

Pete

Pete, Absolutely!

A good way to get the pattern for the otter fur for the backs; use wax paper, plastic or some other transparent material to trace the outline. Cut the outline and staple onto some card stock (cereal box material etc). The card stock gives a stiff edge when tracing the pattern onto the otter leather with a ball point pen. Cut the leather from the inside, never the fur side, with a razor blade.

Find the centerlines by folding lengthwise. Mark the center end point on mitten and fur with ink.

A pretty good rule of thumb is allow at least twice the length in thread (floss) as the length of work being stitched together.

Line up the end center marks and get busy.

Stitch leather to leather. Make sure you get enough leather (not too close to the edge) so the stitch won't tear-out. Keep fur out of the stitch. Tight and even is the goal each stitch between maybe 1/16" to 1/8" apart.

If it's tough to get the needle through, then get it started and push it through against something like top picture.

Stitch all the way down one side then with another length of floss go back to the center starting point and stitch down the other side.

Being right handed, working down the right side is a breeze while stitching down the left side is more of a battle.

You want to work from the top center down both sides to make any unevenness come out at the bottom where it will be covered by the longer beaver fur cuffs.

I really appreciate this thread.

Thanks Jack Originally I hadn't planned to get so detailed but I'ii see it through now.

Since the beaver had some rubs that I don't want on the mittens I need to work around them so I poked through the leather with the pin from the fur side where I could see the rub.

Pictures should be self explanatory.

Of course now I can mark out the cuffs on the beaver leather and avoid the rubs.

Do you put anything on the thumbs? That's what gets cold for me on the snogo, especially the thumb on the go button.

This is great, can you show how you stitch the cuffs ? I think I know but do you stitch the beaver thru it's self on the part that butts up to the otter? How do you keep the fur out of the stitches?

Thank you for taking the time to do this tutorial and answering our questions. I've got the tanned fur to do this so I need to order the choppers and get after it.

Might be a day or 2 before I get to it.

No fur on the thumbs with these. Of course it's not as cold down here as it is up there . One of my machines, the thumb warmer works great, the other it';s kinda hit and miss; low can be too low hot too hot sometimes. My throttle thumb can cramp up when riding due to extended use even when it's not cold. Generally I'll wear gloves while tending sets then at the end of the day, when looking at a long dark cold ride back, put on the thick warm mittens and it's nice!

I deleted the correction post it wasn't necessary.