this morning i made three quilted potholders out of scraps of marimekko fabric passed on to me by my friend ursula who fled the bay area for minneapolis (actually, st. paul, site of obama's victory speeech!) last year. these are such amazing remnants -- too amazing to waste! and luckily most of them are in complimentary colors, which made choose the pattern both easy and difficult.
this idea came from lotta jansdotter's "simple sewing" book, which i highly recommend. the instructions and illustrations are extremely clear, and the book comes with several patterns.
i found making the potholders to be fairly problem-free, except i found it a bit difficult to manage two pieces of wool for the batting. lotta recommends wool for its natural fire retardancy, the only downside is it's a bit expensive. i went to the fabric outlet on mission and 17th, just a few blocks from our apartment, and found some wool on sale (orig. price $24.99, but half off, and i only got a half yard). still, it was more than i hoped to spend on filler.
anyway lotta recommended two pieces, and i found that to be very bulky and difficult to sew through. my machine didn't like it either, and made a few loud, worrying noises while i forced the layers through.
i made two of them with only a single layer, which made things way easier. i am going to test the single-layer potholder tonight (while making dinner) to see if it's insulated enough. if not i may just use regular ol' cotton batting, even though it is extremely flammable. i can't remember of any situations, at least not recently, where i used a potholder in an instance where it may have been in danger of catching on fire. my sense is that the insulation is the most important thing. (if anyone has any thoughts or experience on this, please share!)
anyway i will let you know how the single layer measures up. in the meantime, everyone -- and especially ursula, the source of so many crafty and beautiful things -- should expect one of these in the mail!
P.S. in the interest of fairness, here's one that turned out less well. i left this one out of the glam shot above:
the topstitching part on the side i'd left open (to turn it inside out, which is really right side out...) didn't go so well here. i found it useful on this side to leave about a 1/4" of extra fabric to make the fabric easier to fold and sew over.
also i didn't mention the twill taping that i used to make the loop...i got two packs of this today in a taupe color (shown here) and a bright orange and yellow. it's fairly cheap and will come in handy, i'm sure!
