Pot holder or oven glove?

20th March 



Nine cut out pieces were needed

I do not know what is wrong with me, but I want to make and do and nothing else.  Somewhere in blogland (SewDaily.com) there is a dictionary (mock) name called procraftinating, which my family and I think sum me up, the definition is:  working on craft projects when you should be doing the laundry, dishes or picking the kids up from school.  Yep, that sums me up!  Do you fall into this category?

So what have I been up to whilst ignoring my chores?  For those of you who have been guessing on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/eclectichomelife?ref=hl):  I made an oven glove, English name, or as the Americans call it a pot holder.  I recently discovered a new blog that has many beautiful sewn makes and this is from there, thank you Amy, I am sure I shall be popping over to your blog often.  Link below to her great page.

Oven glove (pot holder)



You will need four different patterned materials, one pattern for the front (need two pieces of this), one for the back (again you will need two of these), one for the ruffle and one for the bias binding edging. Plus you will need fire retardant wadding (again two - or in my case disused seat wadding!!)

Amy's tutorial is very clear and so I will not labour the point and tell you step by step, but show you my photo journal of the making of my oven glove.  I found the sewing of the criss cross pattern strangely satisfying and wonder now if I might actually enjoy quilting, have never even considered it before!

The first thing to do was to sandwich the wadding between the front material pieces, to hold them together whilst sewing on the machine instead of basting them, I thought I would try something new and hoped it wouldn't ruin my machine or machine needle - I spray glued them together!!  And guess what, it worked a treat.  I had spray glue left over from a previous crafting activity - heart making: http://eclectichomelife.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/valentines-and-crafting.html I shall use this again as it held it all together and there was no slipping of the material.  Not very Sewing Bee like I know, Patrick would have a fit!



Amy used fancy quilting tools to mark out where to sew the lines to criss cross and hold the wadding in place, but as I do not possess such things, I just followed the pattern on my material and followed the dots, literally!

 

I just loved the criss cross coming together.

 



I needed to do exactly the same with the back piece of material too.

 



Two completed criss crossed front and back sections with wadding sandwiched between.

 



Next up, was top make the front ruffle, a little bit of girlie extravagance for an oven glove, but actually I quite like this frivolity.  And making a ruffle is fun and  quick, just remember, to change your stitch length to the longest you can to help when it comes to ruffling it up.

 



At this point Amy does tell you to be careful, but I do not think it can be stressed enough.  At this point BE CAREFUL when pulling on the threads of the long stitched to ruffle the material.  You do not want the thread to snap as otherwise you will need to start this process again.  Pull on the threads very gently and slowly and carefully move the formed ruffle towards the far end, it become obvious as you do it, promise.

 



Once ruffled, it is a matter of sewing it to the top of the front side and then once attached, the long stitch to create the ruffle can be removed.

 



Side view to show ruffle pinned in place before being sewn to front piece.

 



Here you see two lines of stitching, the bottom stitch is the long stitch used to create the ruffle and can now be removed, the top stitch is the one to hold the ruffle in place.

 



This is then the point to begin to attach the bias binding, those of you that know me may remember that this is not my favourite thing to sew, but the end results are usually worth it.  All I can say here is take it slowly and use lots of pins to hold in place, especially on the corners.

 

 

Before attaching the bias binding, it is a good idea to zig zag around the entire edge, this makes it easier to bind with the bias binding and helps control it a bit!

 

 





Before actually sewing on the binding, if you intend to hand the oven glove up, then now is the time to attach the loop, I used a ribbed ribbon.  Here you find the mid point and sew it on, counter intuitively the wrong way, so it faces down as to the way it will look when hanging.  Bear with me, you will see it works...

 

The bias binding stage.

 



There was a lot of thickness to be squeezed into the bias binding!

 



If you look closely here, you can see to the left of the sewing foot the bias binding that is now sewn in place and to the right ahead of the sewing foot, the bias still needs to be sewn. Sewed through, two front pieces, the wadding, the ruffle and the top and bottom layer of the bias binding - as said a lot of thickness to be tamed!

 



A closer view to show you.

 



Sewing the first edge of the bias.

 



 

Excuse the blurred photo, but this is the back and perhaps(!?) you can see all the pins needed to hold it in place, especially on the corners.

 



 

The completed oven glove with loop at the top!  Unfortunately due to the spacing between the dots, and I was not thinking and placed the bias with the dots on the back, the front bias is completely white, which is a shame.  I think too the bias was too wide and given the oven glove a heavy duty look, which I suppose suits its purpose.  I WILL have another go and make more as it was a fun project and pretty quick.  I was able to whip it up in under two hours and think the next one will be even quicker. 

 



 

 

Amy's oven gloves are beautiful a real piece of kitchen beauty, her bias is much more delicate and she adds applique to hers too.  So next round for me will be to aspire to have mine looking more like hers. but in the mean time, I am quite pleased with mine.  It is already in use.

 

Take some time out and pop over and see Amy's blog, she has some great sewing projects:

 



http://nanacompany.typepad.com/nanacompany/2013/10/pretty-little-potholder-tutorial-a-diy-step-by-step-guide.html

Happy Thursday everyone!