Mitten Shells? fabric?

[Jared Cook]

Ok, so i'm planning on throwing together some mitten shells out of scrap materials to go over my gloves for my next hike in a couple weeks. I'm curious if i should make them completely out of momentum, or the top of the hand out of sil and the palms out of momentum, or fully out of sil?

I'll be headed to the Olympics national park in a few weeks. The whole purpose is to add a little bit of warmth and wind protection mainly while sitting in camp. So they might need to shed a little bit of rain, but if it's really raining hard i'll be under the tarptent. They might get a little bit of use while hiking if this weather keeps up though…

[Inaki Diaz de Etura]

I made a pair out of silnylon. They can go on their own or over other insulating gloves/mittens. They obviously don't breathe but when it's cold enough to need them it's cold enough for the hands to not sweat much, I don't find moisture build up a problem at all. Actually, when it's cold and wet (read raining) moisture eventually seems to find its way in from outside and this is a much tougher issue, you still have to use your hands and it seems to me a bit of a lost battle to try to keep them dry. Still I think the silnylon shell helps with comfort. It reduces wetness and definitely helps with wind chill. I meant them (and used them) for hiking time. With hiking poles.

My pair was very roughly made, think of a hands profile in two layers that were then sewn together… it works for everything but the thumbs where I get a somewhat badly wrinkled area. The commercial mittens I own have a separate sewn in piece for the thumbs but I meant this as a trial, do it quick effort to see how it worked. I mention because I feel the rough design somewhat affects performance.

As far as fabric goes, I think silnylon is good: lightweight and reasonably durable.

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