NEO: Play Kitchen Hotpad Tutorial

How was your Easter?  We had a wonderful little getaway for the weekend with our baby dills--more on that later.  But today I have another Never Enough Orange project!  You might be wondering what this has to do with my sewing studio.  Well, I do share this space with some smaller dills, and we have a play kitchen that is getting a makeover to match the orange theme.  I can't wait to show you how it's turning out!  In the meantime, here's a little project to coordinate with a children's play kitchen. 

It's been quite a while since I've done a "Swatchee Project".  If you're new here, a swatchee project is something I make using swatches of fabric I collected while we were in Korea.  Here are my past projects:

Simple Wool Jumper with Swatchee Pockets

Variegated Verge Skirt

Purse Organizer Pouches

The swatches [or swatchees as the Koreans say] are different sizes and obviously made of different fiber contents, and really, I can only guess what they're made of since it's all in Korean.  I used 4 swatchees that all have at least some synthetic content, which brings me to:

Disclaimer and warning:  This is just a toy.  This is not for actual use in the kitchen, and has not been tested with real oven temperatures. [I imagine that you would want more insulation than what I've done in this project not to mention all natural fiber content, so please do not use this tutorial to make a real hotpad.]

I am not a quilter, and don't know that I'll ever be one.  I appreciate and admire those who are, but I don't enjoy repetitious work when it comes to machine sewing.  My moods, however, are known to sway from time to time, so I'm leaving that needle up for the future.  So, you quilters might laugh when you see my methods here, but you could just kindly inform me of better ways.

• Piece 4 rectangles together with 1/4" seam [first 2, then the other 2, then all 4 together]
• The pieced layer will be on top, the batting in the middle and the solid layer [right side out] on the bottom

• Make one stitch, at an angle.  I have an attachment bar, guide thing [I'm pretty sure that's the technical name] that fits into my presser foot to guide stitching lines without the throat plate [that square metal thing with your seam allowance guide on it].  Use it to guide your stitches, making them an even width apart.  Rotate fabric 180 degrees and quilt it the opposite way, creating a grid pattern on the bias.

• Have we learned how to make bias tape yet?  I made 1/2" double folded bias tape=cut 2" strips of fabric on the bias.  Using a bias tape maker machine or a hand held bias maker or fold your bias in half, press, then fold the outer edges in, create your own bias tape.  [Or you could always just buy some pre-made!  I won't tell.]

• Round the edges of your hotpad and pin the bias tape around the perimeter, folding the beginning under 1/2" and overlapping the end 1/2".  It might be easier to clip the corners 1/4" to make your bias go more smoothly around.
• Before you stitch the bias, make a little loopy thing with 3" of your bias tape.  Just stitch down both sides and fold ends together.  Insert this between the hotpad and bias on one of the corners.  Stitch bias.

• Flip the bias over to the opposite side and pin in place.  Stitch the inner edge and the outer edge to help it lay flat and just be cuter.

That's it!

And bad news for you who don't like to make bias, because my next NEO project has lots and lots and lots and lots of bias involved.  Good news for those who do! :)

Swatchee Project III and a GIVEAWAY--closed

It's time for another Swatchee Project:  an organized purse.

I carry a large purse.  I have to be on the ready for the need of coiffed curls on girls or bandaged baby boo-boos.  It's what a good mom does, right?  Thing is, I can never seem to find what I need without an embarassing search through my purse.  [Picture me, standing at the checkout with one child climbing out of the cart, another collecting a handful of candy that is strategically placed at her eye-level, one weighing herself on the giant scale down the walkway, another hitting me over and over in the thigh with the handicap pull-out counter, another one trying to sign the electonic pad with a real pen while I mumble that you'd think with everything I have in this black-hole of a purse I'd have my wallet.]  Here is my new system.  Simple double drawstring bags with a logo of the contents.  Most of them are self-explanitory, but let me introduce you to one of my favorites.  A while back I mentioned my traveling project bag.  I have a couple of fears.  ONE that I'll be somewhere I can't find food.  TWO that I'll be stranded with lots of time on my hands and no project to fill them.  To take care of my productiveless fear, I carry with me a small project.  Usually it's a beading project.  It's amazing what a few minutes here and there can produce.  Another result is I am building a supply of these beaded bracelets that take hours to make.  Want one?

Leave a comment.  How do you organize your life?

I'll announce a winner Friday.

Swatchee Project II

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Variegated Verge

This neutral colored skirt is my own design.  It's made of a beautifully draping Pendleton wool with baby wale corduroy swatchees as part of the pleating.  I wanted something asymmetrical, but nothing too distracting from the variegated verge. 

Swatchee Project I

This is my own design.  I had the skirt concept, but then decided to make it into a jumper.  It's made from some Pendleton wool I've had since high school (no moth holes!)  I lined the entire thing except for the waistband and straps, which will only be touching her shirt anyway.  I used crochet thread for the hand stitching, which I really like the sheen of, though it's harder to pull through than embroidery thread.  The hem is faced to give it a smooth finish.  The pockets?  Korean Swatchees, of course! (which were also sewn on by hand, but with matching thread.)

A New Series:

The gargantuan fabric place in Seoul has fabric samples at each little booth.  I should have brought a bag just for the samples I snatched up.  Instead, I tucked them in my mom's purse (I know, I'm 30 and I still stick things in my mom's purse).  But the Korean's don't call them samples, even though most of them said SAMPLE right on them.  As with many American words they say, they add "ee" on the end (churchee, orangee).  So by the end of the trip, we were referring to them as swatchees.  "Swatchee?" we'd ask when there wasn't a sample out.  Going over our day spent collecting fabric, my mom and I would hold one up and say, "Oh, look at this swatchee, I should have gotten some of this."  SO, I am starting a new series, entitled, of course:

S W A T C H E E

Ways in which I use the bag of samples I came home with (like I was going to leave a gallon size bag full of material, even if they're cut into tiny little rectangles, and all different content and color!)  I've got something in the works as we speak I write.