Heart-Shaped Potholders

 My plan for hand-made gifts (the next time we go to France--post Covid) is heart-shaped potholders. 

This one is a larger potholder, made for my Sweetie who cooks.  It was made with leftover recycled jeans from the Midnight Blues Backpack project, and a St Vinnie's shirt that didn't quite work for the lining for the backpack.

The hot contact side is quilted with multiple layers of batting for insulation and padding.  

Seems to work just fine.

The whole blooming set.

These were all started last fall when I was making kits for Quilt Camp with my friend Janna.  Most of the fabric came from my mom's stash.  Even the binding and batting was leftover in the scrap bin.  I don't think I bought anything new to make these.

I'm keeping this one.  ;-)

 

This is one of the videos I consulted to make these heart-shaped oven mitts.

This is by Shabby Fabrics who suggested using a layer cake (10-inch squares) with coordinating fabrics.  Her pattern is a little bigger to allow for turning.  The other patterns that use binding don't lose surface area that way:

I simplified things a bit in that I did NOT add binding to the flaps on the top layer. Instead, I folded the in half, added a layer of batting and top stitched along the edge of the fold.  Seemed like an innovation and simplification to me!

It was helpful to quilt the bottom layer with the 2-layers of batting BEFORE cutting out the hearts.  That stabilized everything.

I used scraps of Hobbs 80/20 Cotton Batting or Warm-and-Natural, because that's what I had on hand.   I tested these (3 layers batting plus 2 layers fabric) with a hot tea kettle and other hot items from the oven.  The verdict: 3 layers of cotton batting appears to be sufficient.   I did not use Insulbright as recommended in most of these videos.

For my test heart, I also quilted the middle layer, but that may not be necessary.  She doesn't take that step in the video, and it does help to differentiate the bottom layer from the middle layer.

I did not include the hanging loop on my test piece, because we keep out pot holders in a drawer next to the stove.  I will include the loop for the potholders to be gifted.

 

This is the first test heart I made.  Yes-- there were multiple prototypes.  This method requires bias binding.  I figured out pretty quick that I did not want to mess with that -- although I figured out that this creates a slightly larger heart.  The turned one is just a touch too small.    In clearing out my mom's sewing room, I found leftover binding in her scrap bins and will use that.  This binding from leftover quilts, and is NOT cut on the bias, hence the little bit of curl to it.  Bias binding would have more give to it.   This heart used Hobbs 80/20 batting.

Here are some other references:

Heart-Shaped Potholders - Craftsy Tutorial 

Heart Shaped Potholders - Martha Stewart