Scrappy Potholders Tutorial

Hi So Sew Easy readers… I'm one of you, I love this blog! Deby has been a inspiration and blogging mentor to me, so I'm thrilled to be here today. I'm Emily and I blog at Nap-Time Creations. I have two boys and I LOVE to sew for them. My blog is mostly about sewing for them, myself and our home, but I also publish a recipe each week. I also host a weekly link party called Tasteful Tuesdays, I would love for you to come over and link up your projects. I do features each weekend from the party and those posts are wildly popular. Okay, lets get to the reason I'm here today… a scrappy potholders tutorial!

Cute, huh??? Lets get started so you can make your own…

You will want to gather some fabric. I used scraps for the tutorial today. I had fabric left over from making lots of these potholders for my Etsy Shop. You can also use larger pieces of fabric. You will need to be able to cut 1 1/2 inch wide strips. They don't have to be very long, although you will need some the length of the potholder {around 8 inches} so…

You will need

3/4 yard of fabric, assorted colors, cut into 1 1/2″ strips. I used four colors.

Cut one 8×8″ square, fabric of your choice for the back.

36″ of of 2″ wide fabric strip for binding {more on that later}

Batting, cut in 8″ squares

Here are my cut fabric piles.

Next we need to create the binding. 1. cut 2″ strips. You can use all one color or more if desired. 2. Sew the strips together so you have the length of the perimeter of the potholder 8×4=32 + some extra I would have at least 36 inches of binding. Sew together at a right angle to minimize the fabric thickness of the binding. {a straight seam creates a big bunch of fabric in one place, this technique spreads out the seam.} 3. Clip the seams and iron in half length wide wrong sides together. 4. my ironed binding ready to sew on the potholder.

See this binding tutorial for more tips.

Okay, now for the exciting part! lets put it all together. You can buy insulated batting specifically for potholders… I didn't have any, so I just used four layers of my regular blanket batting {it seemed to keep the heat off my hand in my test sessions!} Lay your 8×8″ square right side down, add the batting, then top with the quilted square right side up. {1}. 2. Pin, Pin, Pin!!! Use lots of pins to hold it all together and everything in place. 3. Sew/quilt the potholder. I sew along all the seams, but you can do whatever you want. 4. It should look similar to this when finished. All sewn together. Trim the edges.

Lets add the binding now. Start along one side and pin to the first corner, leave a bit of a tail {don't sew from the start of the binding fabric}When you get to the corner sew to almost the end of the side, stop, pull your fabric out from the machine {dont take it all the way out and cut the thread as I did the the photo} Make a 90 angel with the binding, fold it down and continue sewing. This will give you enough fabric to make a nice corner on both sides. When you get all the way back around you should have two tails.

1. With right sides together pinch the tails together so the edges are flat on the potholder. You want to find where to sew them together to finish the binding. 2. I often fold my project in half to help pin and sew a straight line. Sew where you pinched and pinned. 3. You should now have a completed edge. Sew to the potholder. 4. Trim all the threads from the quilting and binding. 5. this is my back. 6. fold the binding back over and hand-stitch to the back of the potholder.

You did it!!! Now, make several more and give them to all your friends for Christmas! Don't want to make them… buy some from me {ha!}..

and finally… come on over to my blog today.. I'm show how to make a co-ordinating scrappy table runner to really decorate your table for Christmas.

Introducing Emily from NapTime Creations

Emily is a mom, wife, and friend by day, lover of all things crafting and sewing by night. She blogs from her small Hong Kong apartment where she is busy raising two small boys and supporting her teacher husband. She is constantly working on new tutorials, taking better photos and cooking yummy things. Stop by Nap-Time Creations to check out all the action. You can find her at Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and Twitter.

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