Patched Hexagon Pot Holder Tutorial.

Hello all, here we are at the start of a new year and I don't know about you but I'm really quite excited. The Christmas decorations have been packed away, hooray and the last of the festive food has been finished (apart from the obligatory handful of left over toffees). #1 has returned to uni and #2 is back at school. Visiting relatives have been hugged, kissed and waved goodbye, all that's left to do now is a bit of 'start-as-you-mean-to-go-on' tidying and sorting. Starting with my fabric stash, well part of it. My lovely mum helped me sort and refold the bottom 3 shelves of my fabric cupboard; so previously I was forcing fabric in willy-nilly now it looks like there could even be room for some more! ;) My first bit of stitching of 2012 was a little experiment joining patchwork hexagons by machine. A little bit fiddly but certainly quicker than by hand. I think I'd need another practice session before I made anything larger.Here's the back looking pretty much as you would expect the back to look. Over all a pleasing result to my experiment but what shall I do with this little piece of patched hexies. While I was wondering what to do with it I turned under all the outer seams and machine stitched them in place.I know lets make it into a pot holder!

Would you like a little padded pot holder tutorial?

Good. I shall proceed.

This will be a round pot holder, padded and decorated with our hexy patchwork. Firstly place 2 pieces of cotton fabric right sides together on top of some thin wadding or wool fabric or something like that, I've use a piece of acrylic fleece fabric left over from making my christening cake.

Draw a circle on your fabric slightly bigger than your hand, mine was about 8 inches in diameter. You can't see it here but I've tucked a little hanging tab in between the two top fabric layers so that it gets sewn in. Stitch around your circle making sure to stitch over the hanging tab but leaving an opening for turning.

(I have no idea why this photo is on it's side. It wasn't before I downloaded it!)

Trim closely around your stitching line leaving a little more fabric at the opening as you need to turn this in and it will be extra fiddly if you don't leave a good half inch of fabric. Trim the fleece into a nice circle though, you don't need the extra fleece at the opening.Turn right sides out. Here you can see our fleece padding neatly sandwiched inside and the little hanging tab...well...hanging.

Next tuck in the fabric around the opening and pin.

I chose a dark pink thread as it's quite nice to see the stitching on patchwork and we're going to make it very neat. Fill the bobbin with the same colour.

Sew around your pot holder quite close to the edge to close the opening and to help hold all three layers together, it also gives a neater flatter finish.

I then went around and did a second row of stitching between my first and the edge, but one row would be enough.

Centre your hexy patchwork on top and 'stitch in the ditch' around the centre hexagon and along the seams radiating outwards. Stitching (quilting) through all four layers of fabric will hold the layers together so you have no baggy, loose areas of fabric when you grab something with your pot holder.

Lastly stitch very close to the edges of the patchwork all the way around.Now because we've stitched very neatly in the 'ditches', the back should look like this...almost as good as the front...

which looks like this! This is the fourth pot holder I have ever made. Here is the first. I made this when I was 12 as I wanted to have a go a patchwork. I cut up an old three tier gypsy skirt I had been given by my auntie. I had no idea what I was doing but I carefully stitched the little squares together by hand and it turned out ok if a little bit thick but hey!, 30 years later it's still going strong!

This was my second go at hand stitched patchwork. I did this at a little sewing class I attended on a Friday morning while the children were at nursery. As you can see it's very grubby and well used, in fact I use it every day as it's nice and thin making it easy to grab lid knobs and handles.

Dosie Rosie may recognise my third pot holder as she won a giveaway quilt I made of the same design. This little square was printed on the fabric to show you what the large quilt would look like when finished. Well I couldn't waste it could I!

I even patched the back. This one was machine stitched.

Well, there you go! One pot holder pressed into action. The pan full of chilli is curtesy of Wonderful Man. It's his signature dish! lol.

love fi x