Janel Was Here

Category: Quilting

  • Quilt As You Go Potholders

    Quilt As You Go Potholders

    Easy and quick homemade scrapwork potholders make great DIY gifts! You don’t need a pattern and they’re FREE to make out of fabric scraps.

    Most of the instructions I found for quilted potholders use bias binding, like commercial potholders. But it’s so hard to sew bias binding on straight. Why not cut the backing larger and wrap it around both layers? That way it’s got the bound look, but can be pulled tightly in front while sewing because the back layer stays put.

    Testing with some random scraps. A couple layers of old towel for the batting. The corners came out pretty messy on the first test. I wasn’t folding them right just yet! So I stitched something pretty over the top. They’re good enough for my own drawer, and we’re getting warmer.

    Wrapping GIFTS gave me an idea of how to do the corners right!
    Just add some loops for hanging and they’re cute enough to be a present.

    The blue ones are to match a Navy blue kitchen. The next project will be to match Kitchenaid red.

    I found some scraps just right, a long piece 2″ wide with red apple graphic print, some red and white fabric that was 5″ wide, a bit of black with apples on it, and quite a big red piece with little white hearts, plenty for the back and binding.

    I designed the perfect pattern to make use of the available fabric, and gaily started cutting! And I cut 2/4ths of the pieces 1/2″ too short.

    For this pattern, to make an 8″ finished square, the center block should have been 2.5 x 2.5 and the spokes should have been 1.5 x 5.5 each. For some reason I cut the apple and the red and white pieces all 2.5 x 5″ by mistake.

    That was all the apple graphic fabric I had, and I’d had my heart set on using it.

    Thought of great way to fix it and make it even better! So I cut the apple pieces 1/2 inch shorter, and then my fix didn’t work either.

    If this keeps up long enough I’ll end up with a pile of scraps.

    Sulked, went to bed.

    Woke up and thought of a better pattern!

    For this I need 2.5 x 2.5 squares and 1.5 x 4.5 strips. The red apple fabric is the right size. Here we go.

    The quilting part on this one was especially fun as one continuous line connects every square.

    I’m SO delighted with this idea, it’s extremely fast and fun, takes less than an hour to churn out a beautiful handmade gift. They’re done before you know it, at least assuming you don’t cut your fabric wrong twice.

    Got smart and sewed the hanging loops on first next time.

    Some for another friend, and some for my Mom!

    Each one of these is totally unplanned. I fish around in the box and come up with something pretty, one piece large enough to be the backing and some coordinating scraps to make patchwork for the fronts, and the pattern is “whatever way I have enough fabric for”.

    Someone emailed a question:

    “Am looking at your Christmas 2009 potholders (came up when I googled) and love them! I am actually going to try and make some on my own. However, I am a new quilter and do not have a lot of tools yet. On the first potholder, there are angled strips to make the potholder. How did you make those strips so that they fit together so well? Please let me know. Thank you so much.”

    Answer:

    Check out these… or google for “string quilt”. There’s no fitting 🙂

    https://www.janelwashere.com/quilt-as-you-go-string-patchwork/

    https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/make-a-string-quilt-2821858

  • Quilt As You Go – String Patchwork

    Quilt As You Go – String Patchwork

    A great idea, and I looked around the internet for instructions, but nothing really clicked and gave me a clear sense that I was ready to get started. I had to mull it over for a couple days.

    When patchwork quilting was first explained to me as a child, I thought it was a really dumb idea. Why cut up perfectly good fabric only to sew it back in a different arrangement? Well, that may be what they do now, but isn’t how the technique started. It was born of necessity. Pioneer women didn’t buy new fabric for quilting, they used leftovers and scraps and old clothing cut and put together in a creative way. That suits me just fine. I don’t like to throw out anything if it could possibly be cut up and made into something else, so when I found out about STRING quilting it was lerve. That’s my thing. Really, I had already done it.

    Know what I’d really like to do? Make a quilt out of EVERYTHING old and nothing new. So here we are. Lightweight denim from old skirts for the backing and the knit from old t-shirts for the batting. Sewing pieces of knit together didn’t sound easy, as thin knit is too stretchy and unruly to easily assemble into flat pieces. I fell asleep contemplating how that could be done, and three elements came together: string blocks, knits for the batting, and quilt-as-you-go.

    A piece of otherwise useless light fabric cut to the desired size as a template, over two layers of knit cut a little larger (because you know the stuff’s going to scoot) and string quilting goes over all the layers.

    The quilting tames those sections of knit and holds them in place. Then gets trimmed.

    The denim backing cut an inch larger on all sides, sewn together an inch away from the edge, then overlapped just like binding over the squares.

    Yes, I see the stain. That’s cool, that way the kids won’t be afraid to wrap up in this quilt on the floor. I’m NOT making masterpieces here, just blankies.

    With two layers of knit, two of fabric and one of denim, it’s wonderfully soft and thick and warm!

    I ended up having to trim a tiny bit off of most of the squares to make them fit inside the backing. Next time I’m going to make the quilted pieces 7″ square and the backing 9.25″ squares.