Film in the Fridge » potholders

how do you store your fabric scraps?

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:53:09 +0000

I won’t say this is the most organized way of storing scraps, but I think it’s kind of fun, and it allows me to combine my love of old containers, particularly old enamelware, with my love of fabric.

I’m particularly fond of the enamel lidded pots (lids are good so no one can see how many scraps I have! oh, and they keep out dust… also good). I keep wondering if they ever made these pots in other fun colors – turquoise, or pink, maybe? I have a small pink enamel saucepan, but typically I only see the larger stock pots in white. I’ll keep searching!

The old egg basket was a recent gift – thanks again Phiona! – I love the size of it, and even though my scraps try to escape through the sides sometimes, I still think it’s a fabulous spot for storing fabric!

I keep them all under my sewing table so they’re out of the way, but still easily accessible when I need to grab some scraps!

So tell me, how do you store your scraps?

And speaking of scraps, I pulled out some favorites the other day to make up a couple cute potholders. (String block tutorial can be found here)

(love the selvage as cute hanging tags!)

One’s headed to Chris, who gifted me a gorgeous potholder made of Flea Market Fancy hexagons, and one’s going to Cindy, who made me this absolutely fantastic pincushion out of selvages I sent to her (Cindy also sells her selvage pincushions here). Thank you both!

Now I just need to get myself some cute pins! Anyone have any favorites?

tufted tweets in the kitchen!

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:26:23 +0000

Our kitchen is pretty neutral, so I try to add color with kitchen towels. And what’s brighter or more fun than Laurie’s new Tufted Tweets fabrics?!

I used two of the prints to make a couple new sets. Each is backed with flour sack towels, and paired with a little vintage cotton rick rack around the edges.

In our kitchen these towels do a double duty. Sometimes they act as hand towels, hanging on the over door (and adding a little color!)-

and sometimes they end up over here in this spot next to the sink where we pile the just-washed dishes. This size fits there pretty perfectly, and I like seeing something pretty while doing a chore I dislike!

And then, since I had already been working on some Tufted Tweets hexagons, I kept on with the kitchen theme and turned them into a couple cute potholders.

I hope Laurie likes Tufted Tweets in her kitchen too, because these potholders will soon be headed her way. It seems only appropriate, since they have her name on them!

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Notes:

You can find a tutorial for rick rack napkins here. The dishtowels are made exactly the same – just larger! Mine measure about 20″ x 24″, but you could make them whatever size works best for you!

For the potholders, I used 1 layer of Insul-brite and 1 layer of cotton batting

small projects

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:24:09 +0000

A little gift for my mom for mother’s day -

A few new market bags for a local shop -

And the start of a new quilt -

Many many thanks to Julie and Joree for sending me some of the wonderful paint-by-number bird fabric. I’ve been hoarding it for a while, but now, in my attempt to actually use my favorite fabrics, I cut into them for this new quilt. I’m doing some more improv blocks and each center will feature one of the birds in one of the three colors. I really like each block individually, though I’m a bit concerned about how they’ll all work together in a quilt. We shall see!

100 posts! Let’s celebrate with a giveaway…

admin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:03:02 +0000

So, I made it to 100 posts… er, actually 101, but who’s counting?! When I first started this blog back in June, I never though I’d make it a month, let alone nearly 6 months! Thank you to everyone who’s visited, commented, provided suggestions & inspiration, and taught me new techniques. I truly enjoy hearing from everyone!

Now on to the giveaway… I put together a package for one lucky winner. You’ll receive two handmade potholders (my two favorites, in orange and green)

As well as a set of handmade napkins… I haven’t made these in a while, but if you look way back in my posts (like here), you’ll see that I was really obsessed with napkins and especially vintage cotton rick rack. This is a set of 6, made out of two coordinating pink Jennifer Paganelli fabrics with some nice gray cotton rick rack.

I’ve also included two reusable produce bags. I posted about these here. I use my set all the time for veggies, but when I sent some to a friend of mine, she said they were too nice for produce and decided to store her jewelry in them instead. So I guess it’s up to you what you end up doing with them…

And lastly, simply because I love fabric scraps, you’ll win the fabrics seen below (the 2nd photo shows the same fabrics, just stacked instead). These are smallish pieces, but would be good to incorporate into a variety of scrap projects (like those potholders or towels) or even to include in a scrap quilt.

Now for the rules – simply leave a comment telling me what kind of handmade gifts you’ll be making for the holidays (or handmade gifts you’d like to receive!) What do you think is a great handmade gift idea? (even if it’s not something you’re actually going to make!)

Want a few extra entries? Post about this giveaway on your own blog and you’ll get 5 extra entries. Please just provide a link to your posting when you leave your comment.

This contest is open to everyone (yes, even my family members!) I’ll pick a winner on Sunday and will post the winner on Monday.

Patchwork potholders

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:58:22 +0000

Not a quilt this time, but quilty nonetheless!

We’ve been using some very old potholders for a long time now. In reality, they were never meant to be potholders. They were actually used as examples of quilts you could order from a local store. While they did have batting between two pieces of fabric, they really weren’t very useful as potholders – thin batting led to hot hands when pulling something out of the oven!

In any case, I’m not sure why it took me so long to make new ones. For these I continued with the rainbow hues and pulled several fabrics of one color for each potholder. I made quick log cabin blocks for each front, a piece of corresponding fabric for the backing and whatever leftover fabric for binding.

This was a good project for using up fabric scraps, and also a great way to use up my leftover batting. Each time I make a quilt I’m left with strips of batting – not large enough for another quilt, but large enough that I don’t feel I can throw it away. I used two layers of batting for each potholder and did some simple straight quilting on each.

And I’m pleased to report… no burnt hands!