sewhooked blog

I have a drawer full of potholders.

My kids went through a time where they made loads of woven ones with a  Loop Loom.  Also crammed in the overstuffed drawer are quite a few store-bought potholders that have seen better days. They’re holey and ragged from years of use and could desperately use a makeover.

If you visit sewhooked regularly, then it won’t come as a surprise to you that I have boxes full of paper pieced blocks. Most of these are samples made for the website and don’t, as of yet, have a designated purpose.   I decided to put the two together and give some of my old potholders a face lift!

Quilt blocks are perfect for this project, but you can also just use fabric or fussy-cut a fun image.  I recommend you use a 100% cotton fabric to prevent potential melting.

You’ll need:

• An old, clean fabric potholder.
• A quilt block for the front (House 2 shown)
• Fabric for the back
• Seam Ripper or Razor
• Scissors
• Thread
• Pins
• Sewing Machine
• Walking Foot
• Heavy Needle (I used a denim needle, but you can use quilting or universal)
• iron

Original Potholder, Quilt Block & Fabric

Remove Binding from the original potholder with a seam ripper.
If you feel comfortable with it, you can use a razor instead.  The front of my potholder wasn’t quilted, so I removed that, too.  The back stays in place.

Make sure the quilt block is a little larger than the potholder.  My potholder was not quite square, and the extra fabric gave me room for adjustment.

Line the potholder up on the backside of the quilt block.

Pin the front

Line the back up.  Pin.

Baste approximately 1/4″ from the outside edges.  Remove pins from front and back then quilt as desired.   The sample was outline quilted.

Trim the front and back fabrics to the potholder batting.  This does not have to be perfect, but if the potholder is really misshapen, then consider squaring it up with a rotary cutter.

Potholder unfinished edge.

Prepare your binding.  I used leftover binding from another project that was already cut to 2 1/2″. 
Binding Tutorial from quiltville.com.

Cut a 6″ length of binding for the hanging loop.

Open the binding out, then fold the two sides to the middle.  Press.

Stitch along the open side.

Fold the loop in half and baste in place on the back center top of the potholder.

Open the pressed binding out.  Fold the corner up to a 45 degree angle.

Trim to approximately 1/4″

Fold back up and press in place.

Pin binding about two inches from the angled end.  You can stitch to the front or back.  When I am not hand stitching binding, I always start from the back so I can top stitch the front.

Start Sewing, gently curving the corners.  Just take this part slow and turn the binding as you turn the potholder.

Continue stitching around.  Stop before reaching the angled end.  Trim the remaining binding at an angle long enough so it will tuck inside the open piece.

Tuck in and pin in place.  Stitch.

Turn binding to front of potholder.

Press, easing the corners in.

Pin the binding in place, making sure the loop is upright.  This is an optional step, but I did find that the potholder was so thick, the binding didn’t want to stay put!

Stitch in place, removing the pins as you go.  I zig-zagged around, for extra durability.  You can straight or decorative stitch, it’s up to you.

Stitch the loop in place so it will stay upright.

Finished Front

Finished Back

Find lots more free paper pieced patterns ready to be potholders on sewhooked

Potholders are a great way to practice quilting without the commitment of a lot of time or fabric.  The best part is that they don’t have to be perfect.  Potholders are meant to be used and they get dirty, so if you make a little mistake or your binding isn’t perfect, that’s okay!

If you make this or any sewhooked crafts, I’d love to see a photo!  Email me or add it to the Friends of sewhooked flickr group.

Happy Crafting!

Filed under: paper piecing, quilting, recycled craft | Tagged: potholder, quilting, reconstruction, upcycle