My Favorite Thing

Recently, the ladies in my church group got together for a night of sharing our "favorite things."  Everyone was asked to bring something that was their favorite, with the intent to give it away to someone else.  It was a really fun activity, especially for me, since I am still so new to the area and don't know a lot of people.

Of course, my favorite thing is sewing, so I had to make something handmade to take to the party.  In the end, I went with potholders, because they are the easiest thing to make from a favorite block or two, they are quick, and don't cost much to make.

I even used some of my favorite fabric!  Leftover Me and My Sisters fabric from THIS quilt.

I had fun choosing designs that I love right now and ultimately ended up making two hot pads, so that I could make four blocks.  Two with triangles and two with squares.

 This was a fun project to use scraps on.

I kept the quilting simple on the chevron hotpad, and ended up doing an off-center spiral on the squares hotpad.  Different, but fun.

I tried something new and used a thermal fleece (kind of like insul-brite, but I have the feeling it's not quite as good) and a layer of terry cloth inside my hot pads.  I haven't been too impressed with the quality of thermal fleece I have, but I still have a bunch and I need to use it.  I read about a lady who uses only two layers of cotton towel in her hot pads and never gets burned.  So I compromised and used both.  I hope it was a good choice.  I tried testing them out before taking them to the party, and they seemed to work better on one side than the other.  Hopefully the lady who picked them doesn't have any problems.

I hand stitched the binding down because I wanted it to look really nice.  Machine binding just seemed too risky. :)

I love my Sketch fabrics!  They go great with everything and they make wonderful bindings.  Plus, using different colors of the same fabric helped my two hot pads appear more as a set.

For the loop, I tried this little ribbon technique I found at Chasing Cottons.  I felt like it would be easier and have a more finished look than the traditional looping of the binding.  The ribbon is sewn in with the binding on both sides.

The party was so fun!  It was great to get to know some of my neighbors and to have a chance to tell them about my favorite thing to do.  Now I know who all the quilters are in the area and I found out there is a guild here in my tiny town!  There are a couple really amazing quilters here.  And the best part?  My hot pads were the first item taken!  Wahoo!  I was really happy that someone actually liked my work.  I guess I'll keep sewing.

Speaking of which - did you hear I'm starting an Etsy shop?  Things are moving right along.  I've got materials to make a whole bunch more baby items, packing supplies, and a whole system for keeping track of everything.  Just need to nail down a name.  Do you have any ideas for me?  Would you mind taking my little poll at the top of my sidebar?  Thanks so much!  I'm excited to get this thing going. :)