DIY Fat Tire Bike Pogies (Hand Warmer Mitts)

Edited to add: I put pattern pieces down below. :) 

Get cold hands when you are biking? I certainly do when I'm biking in the winter. I decided to try my hand (see what I did there??!) at making my own bike mittens, aka pogies or poagies.

Photo: www.fitzgeraldsbicycles.com

Well, I don't post on my blog very often anymore since I made the leap to Instagram. But, since this was more of a tutorial, I decided to put it on my blog with more complete directions. Do you know that these bike hand warmers cost around a hundred dollars and you can make them yourself easily?

These Fairbanks-made ones are $135.00! With fabric, I have about $20 into my version and only a few hours. I also cut up a floor mat which I already owned but you could easily find that at Goodwill or Value Village.

These pictures are from Instsgram so they come with all the writing and all the labels that came from Instagram. I had a sample pair from a friend and I had looked at a bunch of samples online. I traced these pogies onto paper and started making some prototypes.

This is the first prototype. I ended up making it a big more narrow and making the "arm" shorter. 

Then I thought the mitt needed to be more angled so I sliced and overlapped. 

After this, I created prototype #2. The second version was almost perfect except I needed to make the opening just a little bit bigger so it would slide over the brake bar, the shifters, and the handle bar. 

That was an easy adjustment so then I cut it out of my Cordura fabric. This is a thick, stiff fabric that will hold its shape. I used a blue cordura for the side piece. I ended up with three pattern pieces. The first is the oven mitt piece, the second is the long rectangle for the side piece that wraps around, and the third piece is the cuff that is made from a stretchy knit. I didn't take a picture of the next step, but basically I cut out the same pieces in a Malden Mills Polar Fleece and put it inside the shell wrong sides together. Then I attached the cuff to both of these layers. 

Here is the inside of the pogie. I cut the lining 1.5" shorter than the shell and then just finished the edge of the lining, folded it down, and topstitched from the outside. 

This last part is optional but makes for extra cozy mitts. I used a foam mat and cut into the shape taken up by the bar and brake lines. You don't have to do this, but then cold air comes in from the bottom and goes right into your warm hands. I just cut ovals and then held them up and cut until I got the right shape. 

 You shove those "plugs" into the cuffs and it blocks the air. The knit cuffs keep them in place.

Done, done, and done. I added some reflective tape to the front of mine because it's always dark and I bike a lot early in the morning. 

Let me know if there is any interest and I can add pictures of my actual pattern pieces. It's pretty darn easy and CHEAP! My son wants a pair now too. I couldn't find anything like my Cordura at JoAnn's so I bought some leather-ish vinyl in the Home Dec department and I'm thinking it will work well for this pattern. I think I'll start on those tomorrow. Happy trails. Literally! 

Here are the plans and the pieces that I used to make my pogies. You are basically just making a curved tube, adding a cuff to one end, and hemming the other end. Let me know if it's not clear what I did. 

Note: All green boxes below are in 1" intervals so that gives you the scale. This is the main piece. I cut this in two layers. The first is a thick Cordura and the second time in a fleece for the lining. On the lining piece, I cut off the 1.5" hem at the top. There is also a rectangle piece for each of those fabrics too (look on the directions above).

This is the stretchy cuff. I had made it too narrow the first time so I added a bit of width to it.