Sand Removal Mitt

***update - tested today at the beach works very well. Works best as a wipe down instead of a mitt***

Having recently moved to Southern California time at the beach is inevitable and lets face it there's no where I'd rather be. However, I do not relish the moment when we leave and have to dust the sand (dry and wet) off the kids. It hurts they cry and for some reason that's what they remember for the rest of the day. I learned fairly quickly that baby powder removes sand painlessly, but it's very hard to get coverage. They have commercial mitts dubbed as "powder infused" mitts to remove sand but they are $30!

So I made my own of course.

Materials...

Microfiber cloth (the size of kitchen hand towel)

4 (four) velcro computer ties or other suitable velcro pieces

A sewing machine w/ supplies (you can hand sew it if needed)

A subway restaurant kids draw string lunch bag or similar non-pourus material

Powder to fill it

Preparing the Fabric...

So I had laying around the house a set of microfiber towels (kitchen hand towel size) that I used for this project. I folded it in fourths and then drew a rough mitt shape around my hand. In hindsight I would have made it a little bigger so it would fit other hands too.

I cut the shape out and then separated them so I had essentially 2 (two) mitts. One I will use to put the powder in and the other I will use for my hand.

Adding Velcro...

On the mitt I will put powder in I sewed opposing velcro strips to the closure. I also sewed another half of a velcro set on the outside for later when we add the non-porous layer.

Sew the Two Mitts..

Then I sewed the edges of the mitt together to create one mitt and then sewed the edges of the other set to create the second mitt.

I first used a basic stitch and sewed as close as i dared to the edge. Then I went back over both of them with a zigzag stitch to sort of seal the edge.

I left them this way I did not turn them inside out, because as I said earlier I should have cut them to a bigger size.

Deconstruct the Subway Bag..

If you decided to use one of the draw string bags from subway, deconstruct it now and cut the rough shape you need for one of the mitts. Don't be too precise here it's better to leave some extra room and just trim around it when your done sewing it to the mitt.

Sew it to the mitt with the velcro closures. Trim the edges of the just added material.

I left a flap at the bottom of the mitt so that i could add the other half of the 2nd velcro pair to so that the non-porous material would close over the mitt bottom.

Connect the Two Mitts...

Finally I sewed the two mitts together to make one. Again in hindsight I would have changed the construction a bit but perhaps with mitt v2 will be a little less bulky and one size fits all.

Finally fill the velcro section with baby powder. Prime your mitt to bring the powder to the surface, store in a zip lock bag and enjoy!