Christmas Gifts- Victory girl style!

I am unsure of your timetables but mine go something like this- I work in two modes, #1 I have plenty of time I can do it later, and #2 I can't believe it's that time already! (picture me a mess here). I decided that although we have not yet passed up turkey day, I might enjoy being ahead on a project so tonight I will start them! I am going to make potholders. I would love to make these for all my friends and family, okay so maybe I better scale that back some. Two sets seems possible. One of them will be donated to school for the Christmas program and the other set...well I may have to keep it. Initially I dreamed up hawaiian quilted potholders in holiday colors, but I wanted something that could be used year round as well. A little internet browsing brought up three designs that could be done in holiday and everyday colors.  A trip to my local quilt store was in order since I would need not only my fabrics but the insulated batting. Printed out designs in hand, I ordered up a stack of colored cottons in the same pattern as to add to their cohesiveness. I'm a bit nutty that way.

Due to the fact that my scanner is on the fritz, I figured it would be easier to cut out some newsprint in an 8x8 block, fold it on the diagonal, and sketch the design out.


The breadfruit leave in green, protea in red, and pineapple in gold.

 My materials for this project are as follows- 12 blocks(8"x8") of each color, 12 blocks of insulbrite batting, 6 blocks of regular cotton batting, and 6 blocks of bleached muslin(background).

Next I placed my appliques on my white blocks and basted them down, however Heat n Bond works well too if you have some. In the interest of my sanity I will be machine quilting these, follow your machine's directions for the applique stitch.

Like lovely layers of a cake we have from top to bottom: color applique block, insulbrite, batting, insulbrite, and backing fabric. The insulbrite does have a "shiny" side that needs to face out and I included two layers so either side of the potholder could be used.

After removing the basting and pressing until perfectly flat, I used my french curve to draw out the quilting lines on the inside of my protea. After this I will not be pressing again until the blue lines have been washed out.

Lesson learned..again. Skipping steps does not always save time!

My alter ego, Wonder Woman, thinks she will finish these in one evening-yeah right! I attempted quilting  all those layers with four pins and no basting and now I will be spending some time with my seam ripper. The layers shifted, so I used alot of pins through out the layers. I also started at the top of the protea applique going down both sides instead of starting from the bottom, which eliminated the wrinkles you see on the right block.
Well Wonder Woman, it seems you and I will be spending another evening together to finish these. Assembly line sewing does seem to take much longer, but when you are finished you have six potholders!!

I hope you have started your handmade gift projects and may you get all of them done!

Stay tuned the the finishing of this project and coming soon, Part 2 of my dining room redo!