Making you own Scrap Leaf Potholder
This month’s web article is all about ideas for your tiniest scraps, often called crumbs. This potholder is made with the strips that are too small to make regular string quilts. Visit the website to see 7 other great ideas for these tiny bits of fabric.
The pattern for this leaf is made by using a standard sheet of paper and drawing a half leaf shape. Draw 45⁰ lines up from the center, similar to veins on a leaf, these are the guide lines. You have permission to print this image and use it yourself, or you can draw your own leaf. By the way, you aren’t limited to leaves, you can draw any shape you want. You could draw an apple or pear shape or if it’s getting near valentine’s day, you might want to draw a heart.
If you plan on using standard paper piecing, you will need to print out a second copy (either a mirror image, or just flip the paper over and trace the guide lines).
For this project, I like to use fabric foundation piecing. I have scrap fabric that is very thin and not well suited for quilting, you could also use muslin or any light-colored fabric you have on hand. I used the paper pattern to cut out two pieces of the foundation fabric, then traced the guide lines.
Please note: The guide lines are not the same as sewing lines. Where you sew will be dependent on how wide the strips of fabric are. This is a scrap project. Only trim the strips to make them straight. Having different widths makes the project look more interesting.
Take your first strip of fabric and place it face up on one of the guide lines. Place your second strip of fabric face down, matching the right edges, and sew ¼” from the edge.
Fold the fabric open and finger press the seam. You can iron this if you like, but there is really no need.
Continue adding strips of fabric until the foundation fabric is completely covered. Please remember, the lines are only guides to ensure that the strips you are adding stay straight and parallel.
Do the same thing for the other leaf half.
Trim the fabric to match the foundation shape and sew the two sides together.
Because I wanted this to be a well-insulated potholder, I used two layers of cotton batting and a layer of Insul-Fleece by Pellon. I put this on a coordinating backing fabric and stay stitched around the perimeter of the leaf. I then quilted it by Stitching in the Ditch.
I cut a 2 ¼” bias strip from the background fabric and started the binding using the method I described in my binding tutorial. I started at the bottom of the leaf. Notice that the beginning of binding is left open.
I continued around the potholder until I got back to the beginning.
It is a little hard to see with these fabrics, but I opened up the beginning of the binding I tucked the “tail” into the opening so that there wouldn’t be any raw edges.
I folded the binding back and stitched the “tail to the folded edge of the binding then down the length of the “tail” to secure the folded edges.
I then folded the tail back under the binding on the backside of the potholder.
I glue based everything in place, then stitched in the ditch around the top to secure the binding.
When you are done, you will have a beautiful potholder for yourself, or make more as wonderful hostess gifts.
