Monday, September 26, 2011

Who wants to be crafty?

It's been a while since I pulled out my sewing stuff, but this weekend I had some time and no desire to grade or write college recs. Therefore I spent a lovely fall weekend crafting.

I made some very cute Halloween napkins. I have no idea why as I have no particular love of the holiday, but it was fun to knock out a quick project. Here's the fabric I used.

I think the little skeleton animals are cute.

I also gave a new project a try. I decided to make potholders. This was prompted by two factors. First, our potholders were totally worn out and not pretty. Second, one of Mary's relatives had made some at her shower and I thought it would be a fun little skill to have in my repertoire.

Here's my first go at a tutorial.


You will be cutting 9 inch squares. Here you can see one square of white cotton (the color isn't important because you won't actually see this), one square of fleece, and one square of Insulbrite. The Insulbrite is what does most of the heat blocking, but make sure the rest of the interior fabrics are all natural fibers. Polyester is very bad at insulating heat seeing as it is a plastic and all that.


You also need four 9" squares that are pressed in to half squares.


Finally, you need one square that will be your main fabric for the top of the potholder.

Next, stack the squares with the white fabric face down, followed by the fleece, followed by the Insulbrite.


Place the main fabric square face up on top of the pile. Next, you'll need to basket weave your four half squares. Place them so that the raw edge is facing out and the folded, finished edge, is towards the middle. Like this.


Then you weave the four halves together making sure you like how they are ordered.


Notice though how the edges are sticking out a little funny? Well, to make the potholder as square and straight as possible, square up your sides using scissors or a rotary cutter so that it is perfectly square.

You also want to liberally pin the layers together as they will shift when you start sewing.

Next, you'll line the edge of your potholder up with the edge of your presser foot. This gives about a 1/4" seam allowance, but more than that, your presser foot won't change size, so you know your seam will be straight.


After you sew all the way around, trim the corners and any major excess. You also need to turn the whole thing inside out using the little hole that the four fabrics make on the back.



Finally, use a wooden dowl, pencil eraser, or some sort of not too sharp stick to poke out the insides of the corners. The reason it can't be too sharp is that you don't want to poke a hole in your fabric. I've done it and it makes you sad.


At the end, you have a cute, very sturdy potholder.


I love that you can put your hand through the back to hold on to the hot dishes better.


I ended up making 4 in coordinating fabrics.


After you get your squares cut, the whole process only takes about 15 minutes. So quick, easy and practical. Yay!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Confession



I hope the Cardinals lose in the coming weeks. I'm so ready for baseball to be over.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Fall

I have a complex relationship with fall. I love the colors, foods made with pumpkin, the return of winter squashes. I'm even excited to be back in the classroom. However, my love of all these things is often overshadowed by the knowledge that winter will soon be here.

For now though, let's appreciate some lovely fall things that I've been enjoying in the past week.


Need I say more?


Pretty house stuff


Football of course

How about you? What are your feelings about fall?