3/30/12: How to Make Quilted Potholders -- Video Tutorial

Last year in May I fell head over heals over this cute pair of potholders Melanie Foster, (from the MJCollection) made:

Such a simple statement can mean so much!

"Hearted" these so much that I made my own a couple weeks ago:

A little bit easier text but they still retain that bold and influential line about baking. . . Or eating. Whichever!

And just because I "hearted" this project so much, I decided to show everybody how to make these--with permission from Melanie Foster, of course. I sent a video tutorial to FaveCrafts.com and they have published it today!

Click here to go and see it! The people at FaveCrafts were also nice enough to allow me to upload the same video series on my YouTube channel. You can view it here. While you're there, you can subscribe to my channel and be the first to see new videos.

And send me an email with photos of your finished potholders -- I would love to see them.

8/5/10: Cherry Red Potholders

I don't do a whole lot of quilting so I consider it a treat when I'm able to browse the fabric scraps I have and do some patchwork. I've been mending clothes lately--not my favorite thing in the world--so I was in desperate need of a sewing treat! Since I've been wanting to make some patchwork potholders to sell at my family's farm market, I finally took the plunge.Read more »

2/6/10: Potholders for the Sunflower Lady

A couple of weeks before Christmas last year, my siblings and I wanted to give a friend of ours a pair of sunflower-themed potholders as a Christmas present. She is known as the Sunflower Lady to us so you can understand the unusual theme!

Since I made a load of potholders back in October I knew what to do right away. When I was running through the sewing room's fabric stash, I found there was only one small piece of sunflower fabric left--I panicked.

But only for a bit. Knowing that I should really limit the amount of this fabric, I chose a quilt block that could use small pieces. I chose one from the Quilter's Calendar that I received from my aunt. Here it is:

I needed to resize the diagram because the finished block would have measured 10"; I needed it to be 8". I did this by scanning the diagram and resizing it using an image editing software.

The way I made the block is different from what I was used to. Pre-sunflower-potholder, I've made blocks by making my paper templates, adding a 1/4 inch to all sides, and then sewing them together using a 1/4 seam allowance. Easy to explain but not always easy to keep triangles, squares, and whatnot, uniform. The technique that I learned by way of this calendar is easy to do. Try making a block yourself by following their instructions here:

Once I made the block and the quilt sandwich, I bounded the edges and added a loop. Done! And just three days before Christmas, too. Whew! Made it!

10/30/09: "Fireproof" Quilting

This month I quilted 5 pairs of potholders as a present for Annemarie's birthday, because believe me we needed some! The potholders were a great vehicle for me to learn more about quilting and to finally be able to use my specialty presser feet that I recently bought from Ebay. See the shop where I purchased them. I bought two presser feet, a low-shank walking foot (aka even feed presser foot) and a darning foot (an open toe, plastic version).

What's a walking foot and what is it used for? If you have ever done quilting before or sewn a seam that had more than two layers of fabric, you would have noticed that the bottom layer (the one that is touching the feed dogs) goes considerably faster than the top layer. I noticed this very well when I was quilting last December. I was quilting a diamond pattern and I was having puckers and pleats form whenever I stitched across. This pleating is caused by uneven fabric feeding. This is where the walking foot comes in. The walking foot has little teeth on the bottom so when you attach it to your machine you have, in a nutshell, two sets of feed dogs, one on either side of you fabric. I noticed great performance when I was quilting these potholders. I did one pair in a diamond pattern (specifically to try out this presser foot) and I didn't have any pleating whatsoever.

And what is a darning foot? A darning foot is used for free-motion quilting, or as I like to say, quilting with a pencil. When you use this foot you lower the feed dogs (or, as I have to do, cover the feed dogs with a "darning plate"), and move the fabric with your hands to make stitch lines in any direction you want. Forward, backwards, right, left, circles, anywhere you want that needle to go. I like to imagine the needle as a stationary pencil and the fabric as the paper.

The walking foot I purchased

And the Open Toe Free Motion Quilting Foot (aka Embroidery Foot)

I didn't follow a pattern to make these potholders so I'll write directions here for a potholder with simple quilting lines:

Materials:

• Two 8" squares of 'fashion' fabric *

• One 8" square of Insul-Bright Mylar/Poly Batting (this is a very special type of batting, it is actually used in fireman's gloves. I bought it from fabric.com. It can really stand up to hot pans and pots and even those occasions when you touch the hot oven coil. I've done that often! Don't have it? You can just use another layer of cotton batting cut to 8 1/2" square)

• One 8 1/2" square of cotton quilt batting (I used Warm and Natural)

• 45" of double fold bias tape (I made my own using leftover fashion fabric, but by all means you can buy ready-made from the store)

Directions:
1. Layer the fabric and batting in this order: fashion fabric wrong side up, Insul-Bright batting, cotton batting, and then finally, the fashion fabric right side up.
2. Pin all four corners, making sure that the edges are even. Baste 1/2" away from the edges on all sides.
3. Take tailor chalk and make a straight line 2" away from one side. Make another line 4" away from first line. Rotate potholder 90 degrees and make two more lines, first being 2" away from one side, then the second 4" away from first line. You now have guide lines for quilting.
4. Attach the walking foot to the sewing machine. Stitch across lines drawn.
5. After quilting, attach double fold bias tape. Remove basting. Make a small tube of fabric and sew to one corner of potholder to be used as a hanger.

This is how I made the fabric loop to hang the potholder:
I cut out a strip of fabric 1 1/2" in width. I folded it half lengthwise and pressed it with the iron. I made a 1/4" seam along the long side of the strip and I sewed one end close. I cut away the seam allowances at the two corners on one end of the tube. To turn to tube right side out, I used a fabric tube turner that is similar to the one seen here. I then cut it down to size and sewed it to the potholder's corner.

* Or in other words, the outer, public fabric. I like to use the term "fashion fabric" because I've heard Nancy Zieman, from Sewing with Nancy, use this term often.

You can really see from this diamond design potholder how well the walking foot works. It is flat and smooth on both sides.





This is the fabric loop made with leftover fabric.


This green plaid potholder and the blue one below were quilted with the darning foot.