Classification: Costuming/How To

Subdivision: Deluxe Gauntlets

Source: K’Jett Qorvazh/Jett Borkowski

¼ yard of marine vinyl, your choice as to the color

Thread to match

1/8 yard black heavy stretch knit, cotton interlock, spandex, or similar

2 yards of clear 3/8" tubing

Black Dye, powder or liquid

Black electrical tape

Vinyl Glue

A stapler and stapler remover

Cooking oil spray

For lettering on the gauntlets (optional):

1/8 yard of a different colored vinyl: does not have to be a heavy marine vinyl

Thread to match

1/8 yard or a 9 x 12 piece of felt, color to match either vinyl as close as possible

Take your clear tubing, cut it into fourths (18" each), and drop them into a bucket full of hot water and the black dye. If you’re doing more than one pair of gauntlets, do all of the tubing at once. You should obviously not put the dye into something you don’t want stained! Mix the proportions of the dye as directed on the box. Let them soak overnight, taking care that the dye reaches inside the tubing and that it gets stirred occasionally.

After an overnight soak, dump the mix and lay the 4 pieces out on something to dry. Let them dry thoroughly inside and out before going any further. Take an old cloth and wipe the excess dye carefully off the tubing. Wear gloves or something to protect your hands because the dye WILL rub off onto them! The point of the dye bath is to get the insides of the tubing to take the dye. The outsides don’t matter; they’re clear and show the black of the dye on the inside. For those of you wanting a different color tubing, you can dye them whatever color you wish, but the darker colors take best. I dyed some tubing red once to see what would happen, and while the tubing did turn red, it wasn’t the lovely blood red on the box. It looked fine, but not great.

Figure out what you want the gauntlets to say in pIqaD or whatever. For obvious reasons, select something short. The esteemed K’wISt has gauntlets that say, "left" and "right". Using the alphabet of your choice, get your letters to about 1 ½"-2" high, and trace them, stacking each letter in a vertical line, making a template. Trace those letters onto the felt and the alternate colored vinyl, and cut them out. Yes, I agree that this is rather a pain.

Dot some glue onto the felt and the vinyl and stick them together. Don’t use a lot of glue! You’ll gum up your sewing machine needle. All you really need is a few dots to get them to stay together for when you sew them to the gauntlet, so just use little dots here and there. Set them aside and let them dry. Trim off any excess felt when dry. If you can manage to staple them down to the gauntlet center without gluing, you can skip this step.

Cut out the two middle pieces out of the main vinyl. Set your lettering on the gauntlet and play with it until you like how it looks. Staple in place, taking care not to put a staple where you’ll be stitching. Sew the lettering down, using a zigzag stitch. The felt underneath is padding to puff out the letters a bit. Many people have a hard time with vinyl in their sewing machine. It tends to stick against your machine foot. To prevent this, spray a very light coat of the cooking oil spray over the lettering before sewing. Repeat with the other gauntlet, and remove the staples. Wipe down the gauntlet front and the lettering, removing the excess oil.

Cut out your sidepieces. You need two of one side of the template and two of the other. Also cut out 2 strips of the knit fabric that are 11" x 2" (for the average sized person) or 11" x 3" for very large wrists. Put one side of the gauntlets against a middle section, right sides together, matching curves. Sew together, fold so that both right sides are facing up, and sew the seam down the middle gauntlet. Repeat for the opposite side.

Take the fabric strip and, right sides together, sew down to a gauntlet end. The fabric strip is slightly longer than the gauntlet, so center it and let there be a lip on either end of the gauntlet. Use a slight zigzag stitch to sew them together. (For example, if the zigzag stitch function on your machine goes from zero to five, put it on one.) When you zigzag stitch a non-stretch fabric, like vinyl, to a stretchy fabric, you are giving the stretchy fabric some give. If you just sew it straight down, the fabric is more likely to tear as you pull on and off the gauntlets.

Trim down the excess to ½" from the seam. Pin the other side of the fabric strip to the other side of the gauntlet, forming a tube. Sew down, again with the zigzag stitch. Unpin, flip right side out, and check the fit. If it fits, turn it inside out again and move on. If it doesn’t fit, take in or let out accordingly. Your goal is to have it be tight enough to your wrist that it’s not flipping around as you wear it, and loose enough to get it over your wrists without much difficulty. Once you’ve got the fit right for both gauntlets, trim that side to a ½" from the seam, and stitch a second line to each side for security.

Take the lip, fold it over the inside of the top and bottom of the gauntlet, and tack into place. Roll the top and bottom of the gauntlet over and make a ½" hem around the edge. The vinyl tends to bunch up a bit, especially at the wrist edge. Just tuck the excess under each vertical seam and sew over it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bit bunchy or overlapped underneath, so long as there’s a smooth seam on the outside. Repeat with the other gauntlet and turn both right sides out.

Take one bit of tubing and holding it in place with your thumb, wrap the tubing carefully around the top end of the gauntlet. Wrap the tubing around to get the exact measurement, and cut off the excess, allowing 1/4" extra, over your measurement. Keep the excess bits of tubing!

From the excess, cut off a piece about an inch long. Sliding your scissors down the inside of that bit, cut it apart, roll it tight, and wedge it inside one end of the tubing you measured for the gauntlet top. Speaking from personal experience please be careful not to cut yourself doing this! You’ll probably have to trim some off of the length of the bit to get it crammed in. Wedge it in about halfway, then bring the other end of the tube, and force the other end onto the bit sticking out, forming a circle. Take that circle and check to make sure it fits around the gauntlet top. Get your black electrical tape and wrap a 2" piece around where the two ends meet. Wrap it tightly and smooth and lumps towards the inside of the ring. Repeat this process with the top of the other gauntlet and the bottoms of both gauntlets, until you have 4 rings.

Find someone willing to spend a half hour or so amusing you. If no one amuses you, go find a television set to glower at for the next 30 minutes or so. Be sure to bring your gauntlets, tubing rings, and vinyl glue. Don’t sniff the glue, tempting though it is.

Starting with the bottom set the ring on the gauntlet, with the taped side next to the fabric along the back. Start gluing from the back, working your way around to the front. Don’t glue the fabric itself, just the tubing to the vinyl. You don’t need a whole lot of glue, just a line of glue will do. The glue when dry just makes the fabric stiff and itchy. Glue the ring down in about 2" sections, holding each section to the gauntlet with your hands until it is about dry, then moving on to the next section until the ring is glued from fabric to fabric all the way around. You need to hold the ring in place for about 3 or so minutes each section. When the bottoms of the gauntlets are done, set them aside and let them dry completely, setting vertically wrist side up, for about 30-45 minutes. Repeat this process for the top rings.

To give the glue an extra bit of security, you can add an extra ring of glue around the inside of each tubing ring. Let that dry, then flip the gauntlets over and repeat this process. If you are fanatical in the pursuit of never having to worry up the rings coming loose, you can take a needle and thread and run a stitch around and around several sections to be absolutely sure it will never come off, never, never, never.

Did I mention not to sniff the glue?