Beer Koozie Mittens

If you're a fan of wearing wool mittens and have ever tried to tie one on in the great wintery outdoors while wearing them, you'll be familiar with the following challenges:

1. A wet beer bottle can slip right out of your mittened hand.
2. The muscle tension involved in holding a beer constricts blood flow, which can make your hand colder.

Enter the Beer Koozie Mittens. The sewn in beer koozie holds the beer for you, eliminating slippage and allowing your hand to relax, which keeps the blood flowing and your hand warmer. That's a lot of winning.

Not to mention that this project is easy to make and inexpensive. You don't need any previous sewing experience.

Let's get to making.*

*Remember that needles are dangerous. Friends don't let friends drink and sew. Please save your celebratory beers for after you've finished this project. :)

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Check out some of my other cold weather projects!:

The Astro Sled
Pocket Pancakes
Hot Toddy Recipe
Mason Jar Tea Set

Materials

• a pair of wool mittens
• a pair of junior boys wool socks (I chose these because they have deer on them = extra outdoorsy)
• knitting wool that matches the mittens

Tools

• fabric scissors
• large darning needle
• two straight pins
• one bottle and one can of beer

Cut a 16" (ish) length of yarn and thread it through the eye of the darning needle. There's no need to tie a knot at the end of this one. (even though I say to do so in the video)

This step is at 1:04 in the video.
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Take one of the wool socks and turn it inside-out.

Slip it over the end of the beer bottle and pull the sock up until its top is just past the bottle curve. (like pictured)

While holding the top of the sock in place, pinch the middle of the sock snuggly into the bottom of the bottle.

Use your thumb to mark where the sock is pinched in and remove the bottle, keeping your thumb in place. This is where you're going to sew, creating the 'floor' of the Koozie.

This step is at 1:26 in the video.
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Taking the yarn threaded darning needle, sew a simple in and out stitch all the way around the sock at the height marked by your thumb, making sure to leave a 5-6" tail at the beginning of your stitches.

For any newbie sewers, the stitch will look like a dashed line with equal stitch/space lengths and you achieve this by dipping the end of the darning needle in and out of the sock material - the way a dolphin would leap in and out of the water.

Be careful as your doing this to not sew through both layers of sock. Keep checking periodically to make sure this hasn't happened. If it has, just pull the yarn out until you've removed the offending stitch, rethread your needle and keep going.

Once you've gone all the way around, pull the yarn as tight as you can and tie the first half of a knot. Wrap the yarn once around the gathered material, tie another half knot and pull tight again, before tying the second half of the knot. Tie one more knot before cutting the yarn.

This step is at 3:19 in the video.
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Once you've double secured your sewing job, using your fabric scissors, cut 1/4" below the sewn seam.

IMPORTANT: Make sure to cut on the foot side of the sock and not on the top 'tube' side!!

Then turn the fresh new koozie right side out.

And voila! First part complete.

This step is at 3:27 in the video.
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Next, decide which hand you want the koozie to be on. Put on your chosen mitten.

Slide the koozie over a beer bottle and place it in your mittened hand. Play around with placement until you've found the right spot - so that the full bottle feels balanced and so that the top of the koozie is above the horizon of your mitten.

If your koozie has a pattern that you want to be outward facing (as I did with my deer), make sure to consider that when choosing your placement/grip.

This step is at 4:01 in the video.
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Using the two straight pins, you're now going to pin the koozie in place, which will make sewing it on correctly much easier.

Carefully pin the koozie to the mitten on the bottom and then on the top. (as pictured) Don't forget that your skin is under there, so be very slow and gentle when putting the pin into the mitten material.

Once you're done pinning, pull the bottle out of the koozie and take off the mitten.

Cut an 18-20" long piece of yarn and thread the needle. Tie a double knot on the end of the single strand. (Do not double up the yarn.)

Trim the end.

This step is at 4:42 in the video.
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Now you're going to sew the koozie to the mitten.

Fold over one side of the koozie and start sewing up that side about 1" from the bottom of the mitten.*

*To help you visualize, you'll be sewing a rectangle that's approximately 1 1/2" Wide x 2 1/2" Tall. Smaller that you might think. This is to accommodate the volume of the bottle/can once it's sewn on.

Stop sewing 1" from the top of the mitten.

This step is at 6:07 in the video.
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Next fold over the top of the koozie, making sure to pull the top layer back a bit so you don't sew through it as well.

Then sew 1 1/2" across the top = not all the way to the other side of the koozie.

This step is at 6:40 in the video.
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Now fold back the other side of the koozie and sew down that side, being careful to only sew through the bottom layer of the koozie.

Stop 1" from the bottom of the mitten.

This step is at 7:44 in the video.
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Sew the bottom (and last) side.

Check to make sure you didn't sew through both layer of the mitten at any point.

If you did, just pull out the stitches back to the offending stitch and start again from there.

This step is at 8:13 in the video.
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Remove the needle and tie a double knot.

Trim off the excess yarn.

This step is at 8:46 in the video.
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Slide a beer into the koozie and put the mitten on. Make sure that you've sewn it in the right place.

If you did, awesome! If not, no worries, just cut the knots off the yarn, remove the stitches and try again.

NOTE: You can leave your Koozie Mitten like this if you'd like to wow your friends by taking your fingers off the bottle/can while you're drinking. They will be so jealous. And may even offer you a lot of money to make them a pair. But if you are looking for maximum relaxation/warmth for your digits, I recommend following the next few steps.

The following are BONUS STEPS that are not in the video.
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These next steps are recommended, but optional and are to secure the thumb and fingers area of the mitten to the koozie. Doing this will give your digits a vacation from holding and allow them to kick back and relax while you drink your beer(s).

Now let's pave the way to retirement for your flanges.

Grip the bottle the way you normally would.

Use the straight pins to mark where you'll need to sew on the fingers and thumb area of the mitten.

Remove the bottle and the glove.

Thread some yarn through the darning needle and tie a double knot at the end of the single strand.

Sew a 1" seam connecting the inside layer of the mitten thumb to the koozie at the place marked by the straight pin. Be careful not to sew through both thumb layers. Tie off the end with a double knot.

Sew a 1 1/2" seam on the finger side, following the straight pin. Tie off the end with a double knot.

Remove the pins.

All that's left to do is head outside and par-tay. Please use your Beer Koozie Mitten responsibly.