Sunday, August 12, 2012

Afternoon Sewing Project: Potholders


I wanted to sew something, but wanted a quick project. Enter the potholder.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the mood to sew, even though the weather was still hot and my lack of inspiration still had a stronghold. It was then that I decided to make a pair of potholders as a wedding present to friends of ours whose wedding we missed because we were out of town, but were having a barbecue at their house last night. I pulled out the quilted ironing board fabric I bought years ago specifically for making potholders (though now I’m wondering if I should use it for the ironing board since it irons cottons so beautifully and quickly), a retro-modern fruit fabric from my quilting stash, and started cutting out eight inch squares from each. I then picked out a brown from my solids, cut it into two-and-a-half inch strips by thirty-six inches (I needed one strip for each potholder), and ironed them into binding for the potholders.

To sew the potholders together, I sandwiched the front and back wrong sides together. Using a neutral cotton thread and the quilt lines from the ironing board cover fabric, I stitched over them to create the same pattern on the front. Before sewing the binding on, I switched to a matching brown thread and bobbin, snipped three of the four corners, leaving the upper right corner square since that would be the starting and ending point, as well as the hanging loop. On the last run of the binding I sewed the strip together to the end. To form the loop, I double folded the end of the strip in and matched seams before making an X within a square to secure the loop. The results? Two cute potholders for a wedding gift and a quilting withdrawal satisfied.


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