Mid Month Potholders

After I asked a question in the QUBE and Accuquilt and Beyond FB Group recently about doing a monthly potholder tutorial/ club, there was MUCH excitement about it, so I decided to jump in and do it!

Now first off, I’m just playing with ideas and dies, some are going to be easy, some are going to be hard, some simple piecing, some with lots of applique, some with one die or a few, and some with lots of dies, some with qube dies some with not…. so don’t panic, if you don’t have the dies, of course you can buy them – hint hint, or you can change the design to fit what dies you have on hand… totally up to you!

-If you DO buy any dies that I show, I’ll show links and if you buy thru my links I get a small commission, which always helps, so I can buy more quilting stuff

Standard things you’ll need for each potholder is scrap batting and insulbright! (the reason why I started this, is that warm company sent me packages of insulbright! I love this stuff and it’s awesome for potholders)

You don’t HAVE to use it, but it’s designed to reflect hot (or cold) back to where the heat came from, so having it in potholders helps a lot so you don’t get burnt…

Okay so on to this month’s potholders!!

APRIL showers!

-I was thinking a month ahead so there’s 2 weeks to finish them before April.

It’s my version of an umbrella and raindrops

For these potholders I used

the dresden plate die

Then you can choose to use the circle (center) of this die, but I used the 3” circle from the 2,3,5” circle die (It was tight though)

Then I also used the GO feathers die

Since these are applique shapes, I also used steam a seam light2

For fabrics I used 4 FQs (or scraps )and white fabric (8 1/2” WOF)

Here’s the main two FQs I used for the dresden pieces

I wanted the blue print to be on the outsides, so I cut out 6 of those and 4 of the pink/white plaid

The traditional way of doing Dresden’s is the fold over the wide end right sides together and sew 1/4” down that side like this

then I trimmed the seam allowance by the folded side at an angle and turned it right side out, at firs I also ironed the whole thing in half so I had a mark to see where the middle was, also when turning it right side out, I used a turning tool rod, use whatever you have on hand, just NOT scissors! then iron this flat and line up the center seam with the folded center line, having the seam inside the tip OPEN.

here’s 6 blue and 4 pink dresdens

Now sew them together two by two, start sewing together at the top so you know that lines up perfectly. Iron seams open!

Sew two sets of 5 together like this

I actually started with the droplets first from the feather die, together with the steam a seam2

I cut 3” strips from the sheets in the pack and they are peel and stick at first, so I stuck two strips on a matching teal fabric, then I just cut out both with scissors and kept the two strips as one large piece and just folded the fabric on the space in between, if that makes sense

then laid on the feather die and cut out a total of 10 droplets

I used another scrap of the seam a steam2 on a piece of black and cut out a 3” circle (I actually cut out 2 and realized I only needed 1!)

You can use the circle from the dresden die, it doesn’t matter much

Then from the white fabric I cut a 8 1/2” WOF strip and sub cut (4) 8 1/2” squares.

One 2 of them I laid out the dresden fans (umbrellas) and pinned in place really well

With a button hole stitch I stitched around each dresden, I always set the start of the stitch to have the needle down, so when I get to a tip where I need to turn, the needle is down and I pivot the fabric and continue on.

With the black circle I cut out, I cut it into quarter and fused one in each corner of the dresden

then it’s time to play with the droplets, at first my idea was only 4 droplets

But then I added the 5th droplet and really liked that! so I fused it down like this

before button hole stitching around all this, from the remaining white fabric, I cut a 2 1/2” x 8 1/2” and made a handing strip by ironing in half, then open the fabric up and fold each long side to meet the midpoint and iron flat again, then fold this in half, so the raw edges are inside the fold…

then I button hole stitched the rest of the droplets and the black quarter circles and top stitches the hanging strip, which I then cut in half to have 2 hanging strips.

Now get out the insulbright and scrap batting

I don’t like to rotary cut batting as the batting gets stuck in my cutting mat, so here I just laid the blocks on top of the batting and cut out squares with scissors

Then lay out the batting, insulbright and the umbrella block

Then pin the hanging strips to the center of the top of the block

and lastly a back piece, right side down! the pin thru all the layers and I have a double pin at the bottom where I leave an opening when sewing it together.

When sewing the layers together you MUST use a walking foot!! as there’s 2 layers of batting and 2 fabric layers with applique, so it’s a LOT of layers.

Sew around the edges but leave about a 3” opening at the bottom. trim the corners when done- I don’t just cut a 45 degree cut but I cut each corner twice or kind of pivot so there’s even less fabric bulk in the corners.

Turn the potholders right side out and use a turning tool skewer or knitting needle or some other kind of stick that doesn’t have a sharp point for the corners.

Iron the whole thing flat and make sure the opening fabrics are tucked in and look good.

I decided to whip stitch the opening closed and that’s it!

You can do that AND top stitch, but my droplets were just so close to the edge, so I didn’t want to stitch over them.

So VOILA! two umbrellas April shower potholders!

Hope you try it!

I’ll try to post on the 15th of each month, but if weekends or my QAL or other things get in the way, it might be a bit earlier or later, so that’s why I named it mid-month potholders

And I’ll continue on, as long as there’s interest!

If you have a blog and make these, comment and leave a link or email me a link, or upload a picture to the accuquilt FB group.

I’m sure you can guess what the theme is for the next month’s potholders!