What To Do When You Need White Mittens for an Ice Skating Recital

Trevor started taking ice skating lessons four weeks ago. He'd originally tried ice skating for his Cub Scout belt loop last year and liked it, but still needed to log more time on the ice to complete the belt loop. His recent success with roller skating lessons made me decide to look into ice skating lessons. Happily, I found affordable beginner lessons ($14/hr including skates), close to home (7 miles), with the first class free. Best of all, we didn't need to wait until the new session began. Trevor had his first lesson the day after I called.

He fell a lot that first day. One of the instructors worked with him one-on-one for most of the lesson and he made great progress. Despite all the falling, he loved it.

Trevor's first lesson was on Week 7 of a 10 week session. Week 10 was a recital. So Trevor had exactly three lessons before he performed in front of an audience. And I had three weeks to pull together his costume. 

His class was performing a simple routine to "In Summer" that Olaf sings in the movie Frozen. They were instructed to wear all white, plus sunglasses. Sunglasses, no problem. All white? Big problem. Trevor literally owns nothing that's solid white besides socks. I checked the hand-me-downs waiting for him in the closet. Still no solid white. I was dead-set against spending money and time searching for white pants and a warm white shirt/sweater that he wouldn't likely need again. I started asking friends and ended up borrowing a white long-sleeved shirt and karate pants. The pants were big, so he'd be able to wear grey sweatpants underneath and stay warm. I wasn't able to borrow a white hat, but I figured his black/grey hat would make it easier for us to identify him in a sea of white. He was fine with that, but he really wanted white mittens. I thought for awhile and came up with a way to make a very quick pair of mittens using materials from my dresser. More on that in a bit. 

Here is Trevor's performance. Look for the kid in the middle with the teal skates and black/grey hat. 

Pretty good for 3 lessons, I'd say! Here's a closer look at his costume. Can you figure out what I used to make his mittens? Remember, I have no sewing skills. And it only took me about 3 minutes.

Did you guess socks and scrunchies? 

I used a pair of my white socks, put them over Trevor's hands, and marked how deep the thumbhole should be. I sewed a simple V along the mark, then used scissors to snip down the middle of the V. I turned the socks inside out and they were ready. I did a pretty bad job sewing them, but no matter. When it was time for his performance, we slid the socks all the way up his arms, put the scrunchies on his wrists to keep the socks from sliding down, then put his white shirt over them. The long socks kept his arms nice and warm under the relatively-thin shirt. Trevor was happy. I spent no money and almost no time on the costume, so I was happy too.