Its a potholder with little grandchildren’s handprints on one side! If you have a sewing machine and some scrap fabric, you could make a great gift with just a few more materials and a bit of time!
This idea came to me after watching a few youtube videos from sewing-related content creators. I was really brainstorming on something to give my mother that she could actually use and enjoy. At this point, if she wants something, she will buy it for herself. She is very specific in the consumable items she likes to use, so those types of gift ideas were out the window, so what could I make for her? Finally, I decided to make an oven mitt or hot pad with two outlines of my daughter’s hands on them! This was a really quick and easy project.
I watched the tutorial from A Quilting Life on how to make a potholder/hot pad/oven mitt. (I am in no way affiliated with Sherri McConnel or A Quilting Life, although I am a big fan of hers. She has a podcast with her daughter that I found shortly after it started and I never miss an episode. They are so nice and I learn a lot from them. I highly recommend it if you are into podcasts and quilting along with her website and YouTube) This is the link to that tutorial:
Of course, I cannot follow directions and I am always putting my own spin on things, so I took 3 strips of 2.5″ fabric and sewed them together. Then I cut those in half and sewed the now 6 strips into a tube which I then cut into varied-width strips and ripped out one seam in ascending order to give me a bargello-inspired improvisational look.
Then on the other side, I used a solid piece of fabric and this is where I added the sweet cutouts of my girl’s tiny hands. I first traced their hands onto cardboard from a cereal box. Then on the paper side of the bonded fabric, I traced the cutout cardboard and was able to cut little tiny hand shapes out of the bonded fabric. I bonded and then appliqued them on before quilting any of the layers together. I also decided to add their names to their hands, so our Nana could remember whose hand belonged to who. I have the alphabet in decorative stitched in my sewing machine. I do not have an embroidery machine at this time. I had wanted to add something like “Nana, need a hand?” but I was afraid to have centering issues and the letters on my machine really are not that great for lots of lettering, so I ended up leaving it off.
I then quilted one layer of batting and the insul-bright needed to the patchwork side. Then quilted the other piece of batting to the handprint side. This was how I kept any of the quilting lines from being all over the handprints and ruining this look. I hope the batting will hold up okay. The batting I used was a specific microwave-safe type and it seems that it should be fine with the quilting I did on one side as it is encased… I guess time will tell.
This seemed like a really special gift. My mother loved it. She was so excited to have something useful and just loves their little hand prints. It probably took me an hour and a half or so.
Also at the time of writing this, I do not have a photo. Grrr. I hope to add one soon!
Let me know what you think. Would you gift a homemade potholder?
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