Scrappy Hot Potholder Tutorial

I finally got around to making more hot potholders this weekend. I finished piecing the top for weeks now, but ran out of the insul-Bright batting to finish them off. These hot potholders were made with scraps from the kitchen floor mat project.

I made a total of three different hot potholders!

Although I have made these before, I could not remember how to do the loop for the life of me! I decided to put together a tutorial for when I forget again next time. I thought I would share this tutorial in case you are interested in making pretty hot potholders with scraps.

:: Scrappy Hot Potholder Tutorial ::

MATERIALS: 

- Tons of scraps assembled into one 8.5" x 8.5" piece
- One 10" x 10" piece of insul-Bright batting
- One 10" x 10" piece of Warm and Natural batting
- One 12" x 12" piece of fabric as the backing
- One 2" wide strip (about 40" long) as binding. Feel free to piece this long piece using scraps as well.
- One 1.75" wide scrap fabric (about 3" long) to make the loop on the potholder so you can hang this up!

INSTRUCTIONS: 
1. Take your quilted piece, backing, batting, and layer them in this order: quilt top (right-side up), insul-bright batting, Warm and Natural batting, and the backing (right-side down).

A note about batting. I highly recommend using Warm and Natural for this project. It's slightly more expensive and is perfect for hand quilting, but this particular batting is thin (yet effective). We will be quilting four layers in total, you want to use batting that will not be super bulky for you to quilt through.

2. Baste through all four layers starting from the center of the quilt. I only did four (as show below).

3. Now you are ready to quilt through this sandwiched piece in whatever way you like. Please make sure you change your footer to the one shown here. Sometimes I forget to switch out my 1/4" quilting foot!

4. This is what it looks like when you finish quilting. See how all edges are uneven? Don't panic. We will trim everything! I usually bast around all four edges about 1/2" away from the edge by hand before I trim and square this off.

 5. After all four edges are basted, I just take it to the cutting mat and trim it! See, it looks all better now, right!?

6. Now this is when you add your label and the loop. Take the 1.75" x 3" fabric, fold the two 3" sides into the middle, and iron. Repeat and stitch along the opening. Attach it to the back of the hot potholder. This is how I usually do the loop. I really like how it looks after the binding is attached.

7. Bind your sandwiched quilt. I use this video tutorial to do my binding every time.

8. Remove basting from step four, iron it a bit, and you are all done!

After you make the first one, additional ones will go by so much faster. These hot potholders are addicting, easy, and perfect for those scraps you have been saving. Please be sure to share photos if you do make one using this tutorial. I would love to see them!