Michigan Style: Now the ONLY Style

When it comes to hand holding, there are two styles: original recipe (that would be with fingers interlocked) and Michigan style (with a sort of cupped hand). Michigan style hand holding, which is, in fact, entirely of my own invention, takes its name from the Great Lakes State’s shape.

A few weeks ago, I came across these:

These are very cute. Courtesy of katespade.com.

They are also very $85 dollars, which I thought was kind of absurd. So I made them myself, and now I’m wearing these suckers everywhere. It took me approximately one episode of This American Life to complete, taking in to consideration the wine I drank AND the time I accidentally sewed one of the quotation marks like a comma. After the jump, there’s a tutorial, so stay tuned.

So you don’t really need anything fancy for this, and you could even be less fancy than I was and be just fine. Your first step is to acquire all your necessary accouterments.

I chose to do this with white felt, but you could really do whatever you wanted. You don’t even have to make this! That’s the beauty of this whole arrangement. You can put this in your Google Reader and then never do it.

If you’re going to do it, though, your first step is to measure the height of the finger part of the mittens, and then figure out how wide it is. I used a ruler because I get kind of anxious, but you could freehand it and everything will probably go fine. I don’t trust myself with decisions at this level.
Your next step is to make an appropriately-sized comma on your felt. I just drew one, but you could always print a size 86 comma, cut it out, and make it your guide. Your call completely.

Now, cut that out. Cut out three more. I guess if you’re English you only need to cut out two. If you’re feeling lazy, just TELL people you’re English and only cut out two.

Next step is to pin everything in place. This is where this project can be either easy or super easy. Some people might not want to deal with sewing. I encourage those people to get some E6000, glue it all on, and ignore the rest of this post. For the rest of you:

Okay, great job with the pinning. Now you just sew everything on with plain ole thread, applique-style.

Now, rinse and repeat four more times, clip off the ends of your threads, and then VOILA. You are so fancy and everyone thinks you’re so clever and it only took you maybe 35-40 minutes to make these including the amount of time it took to fix it when you forgot how punctuation marks worked despite twenty-five years of exposure to written English.

Seriously, I wore these all day yesterday and the day before, and everyone loved them, from tiny kids to grown men. Congratulations! Everything you say is now hilarious. Use them wisely.