Sunday, January 6, 2008

Potholder mania! Stop me before I sew again.

I make these potholders, you see. I make them to sell on eBay. They're made out of recycled denim, pieces of motorcycle bandannas, and flame fabric, trimmed with black bias tape. Sometimes I make the bias if I have black fabric to make it with; other times, I buy it in lieu of buying black fabric that's just right.
Hdpotholder


Anyway! I posted the other day about my cleaning binge in the sewing room. That led to a sewing binge. A potholder sewing binge. I had run out of InsulBrite and batting, so a moratorium of sorts had taken hold of the potholder process, but that came in just before Christmas. When I was cleaning and organizing, I found some that I had started while waiting for the filling to arrive. Today, I went nuts. I machine embroidered the edges of the appliqué (it had been put on the denim prior to today with Wonder Under); added a fray retardant; made the denim, InsulBrite, batting, and cotton sandwich; added the machine quilting around the emblem; then machine stitched the bias tape to the front of the potholder, leaving only the hand stitching of the binding to the back to be done. I made five of them!
That should have been enough, but no. I read an article lately about finishing a project before you begin another one, so I gave myself a challenge. I decided to finish the five completely. I sat down with my handy-dandy new curved snipping scissors (got them as a Christmas gift), black thread, new needles, my pin cushion, and my thimble and set the television for PBS and started to sew. Oh yeah, can't forget the coffee! I spent the rest of my Sunday morning putting the bias binding on the potholders.
One more step, though. I added a black ribbon hanger to each one with the machine. And then? And then? Off to the computer to get them listed on eBay. Whew!
I have more ideas for potholders and bibs. I know I'll go nuts again soon because when I organized the sewing room, I re-found that Sponge Bob fabric I mentioned and it's just screaming to be used. (Update: Bib project can be found here.)

The moral of the story is that even the smallest projects can make a frugal sewing person happy. I have a weird feeling of "I've done something!" going on. Not a bad feeling to have.