Oven mitts from a stash that keeps on giving!

Way back in the Autumn of 2014 I collected together fabrics to make a quilt featuring sheep. I found plaid and checked cottons: some bought new, others up-cycled from second hand clothing, teaming them up with sheep print fabric to make ninepatch blocks. I found a Collie dog print too and cutting just one square from it I called the quilt ‘Where’s Collie?’ (I know, there’s no end to my wit :-))

The quilt was purchased by a lady who lives in a very rural part of England and she was intending it to be a snuggle blanket for use in her camper van. I hope it has been well used over the past three years.
Of course there were fabrics left over, so I made a tote bag:

And a teapot cosy:

I gave the cosy as Christmas gift to a couple of friends who, as well as loving to drink tea brewed in a pot, live a very self-sufficient, rustic lifestyle. The couple take their camping gear, a collection of Tilley lamps and hand crafts to several rural shows through the year. The tea cosy travels with them and has received favourable interest from visitors to their stall. Yvonne suggested that an oven mitt to match the cosy would be a very welcome addition to their camping ‘kit’. This comment came to mind as I scratched around for Christmas gift ideas. I searched through my stash (sorted by colour and size of fabric piece) and, thankfully, found a selection from the original quilt along with pieces of the sheep and Collie prints.
An on line search came up with several methods for making oven mitts. I chose to follow Vanessa, The Crafty Gemini’s tutorial, adding a few changes as I went along.
First I cut out 2½” fabric squares and made a patchwork measuring approximately 21″ x 12½”.

I made paper templates by drawing around my own oven mitts – adding a generous ¼” seam allowance.
For padding I used a layer of Insul-Bright (left over from making table mats) and a layer of cotton wadding. I machine quilted a cross hatch grid across the patchwork sandwich and then used the paper templates to cut out the top of the right and left mittens.

For the palm side of the mitts I made use of some wonderfully soft natural linen given me by a de-stashing Aunt. I used the same two layer combination of padding (Insul-Bright and cotton wadding), made a sandwich and lightly quilted wavy lines to keep the layers together.

Once I’d cut out the two palm sides of the mitts I stitched them to the mitt tops (relieved to find I ended up with a pair of mitts!). I reused the paper templates to cut out some soft calico linings and attached them to the padded outer mitts as shown by Vanessa in her You Tube tutorial (I inserted a hanging tab in each mitt at this stage).

Finally I top- stitched around the opening of each oven mitt to add a bit of decoration and keep the lining in place.

I’m very glad I held on to those fabrics after the initial quilt project was completed as to date I’ve been able to use them to create three extra projects! It raises the question of how to store fabric left overs though: should I split related fabrics and store them by colour or should I store well-matched fabrics together after they have been used in a project thinking they’ll probably be used together again? BUT it’s only five days ’til Christmas, I need to be tidying and transforming my sewing space into a guest room NOT be re-organising my stash! 😀
Linking with Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl for Tips and Tutorials Tuesday. And Connie at Free Motion by the River for Linky Tuesday.
Yvonne Fuchs is hosting her annual review and preview linky. It’s inspiring to see what other patchwork quilters have achieved through the year and what they are planning for the New Year. Why not take a look and/or write a post to share on the linky? And there are prizes to be won 🙂

I guess this may be my last blog post before Christmas so I’d like to thank you for taking time to read and follow my blog and to wish you a joy-filled Christmas.
Allison