My Crafty Christmas [6]

The quest to finish Christmas continues! The last 3 days I've been working on my MIL's present. She recently expressed to me that she needed new potholders. She didn't ask me to make her some. More she asked me if I thought her existing holders smelt like rancid oil and food, even after she just washed them. Then she expressed that she needed to replace them since they were obviously getting on in age. I took the initiative and made her a few to replace her old ones.
I used Fig & Plum designed by Fig tree Quilts for Moda. This is the same line I used to make a table runner for my mother last Christmas. I started with a layer cake, and I still have more than half of it left. I really do love the colorways in this particular range. It's very versatile and quietly elegant, but I find that to be true for many of Fig Tree's lines. I didn't take a picture of the backs, but I made sure that each backing was a color that was not really used in the front to pull the collection of potholders together (like the log cabin backing is blue).

The pot holders finished at 7" square. I used two layers of warm and natural cotton batting with 2 layers of white muslin for the sandwich (so it went front-muslin-batting-batting-muslin-backing). That was after I made one potholder that I decidedly HATED with only 1 layer of batting. It was way too thin, and the fabric didn't have enough contrast (The 3 fabrics I used were all of the same value and tone so the design was completely indistinct.). Like I've said before, I've been trying to use what I have, and I'm not particularly fond of the insul-stuff that people usually put in this kind of project. I don't like the crinkly-ness. So I used what I had ;D

In hindsight, I might have added another layer of batting. I'm really on the fence about that. I would also have swapped the fabric in the house block and used the green for the roof and the brown/stone color for the doorway/window. This was my first time making a house block or a log cabin. I liked making both.

Also, if I could do this over again, I would have bought a heavier duty needle. I was using a 90/14, but I managed to snap it in half when I stitched over the mitered corner of the binding. Oopsy. Thank goodness I had another needle handy ;D