Erica's Stitches

Another friend has a new kitchen so I had an excuse to make some more practice potholders. The kitchen is far away and the information I got is black appliances and a copper backsplash.  I didn't want to make potholders that looked like Halloween so I asked if turquoise was OK.  I planned on a few small patches but the turquoise took over. I'm now making the potholders 7 inches square.  The insulated batting is 22 inch wide and this uses the most of it.  I like fabric scraps, but there's not as much you can do with insulated batting scraps. This limits the patterns that can be used.  I found this pattern in a book and, after 2 blocks, I really like it.  I pulled out all my black, blackish, orange, coppery and peachy fabric.  I was really tempted to keep making more of these blocks with the same color scheme.  I resisted.  I have a feeling that if would have kept on going I would end up with 4 blocks that wou...

Last month I finally got to tour a friends new kitchen.  She loves color and painted the walls purple.  I assumed a nice muted purple but it was really bright.  I instantly thought of a fat quarter pack of purple fabrics I won as a door prize a few years ago.  Not being a great fan of purple I put them aside.  My friend didn't have any potholders to match her new kitchen so my purple fabric came to the rescue.  She likes potholders that are 7 - 8 inches square which elimitates most 9 patch designs.  So, the churn dash block has a larger center. I even made the backs purple.  My friend was delighted. While I had the purple fabric out I made some blocks for my next quilt. I made 3 blocks about 5 years ago and then stopped.  Now I'm up to 9 blocks and am not going to stop until I have a full quilt (final size is still undetermined).  These will be the only purple blocks.  The others will probably be b...

Every so often I end up with an extra quilt block and they have been piling up.  So, I turned them into potholders. I experimented with different binding techniques and loops.  The grandmothers flower garden is from years ago.  Once I realized I wasn't going to piece enough for a quilt, I made them into some blocks and then did nothing with it (the other block I made was much bigger and is going to become a table topper). These are from semi-recent quilts.  One block is from this quilt .  And two are from this quilt.   I guess that means that they aren't orphans.  Since they were small, I just added a border big enough to make them potholder sized. My favorite potholder came from my least favorite (and oldest) block.  This was from a quilt done long ago that I learned many lessons from.  The first was about contrast:  the white and yellow looked great together at the quilt store but they didn't have enoug...

Yes, that's correct.  Quilted, not knitted domino potholders. They are made of one randomly striped fabric sewn into half-square triangles.  When the fabric is lined up carefully, the resulting squares have the same look as the knitted domino squares.  The best part is opening up the individual blocks to see what pattern emerges. I've got the binding finished on 7 of the 9 squares and then all that is left is to sew on the loops. After that they will be sent out as Christmas gifts.  Except for one or two for me.

Last Christmas I got myself a Potholder Loom and quickly used the loops that came with it. Instead of buying more loops I found a way of recycling T-shirts into loops . The potholder in the above picture was made from clearance rack tank tops.  They are nice and stretchy and make great potholders. My worn T-shirts don't always do as well.  Some don't stretch as well anymore and I have to cut them longer than the tutorial suggests so they don't break.  Some don't roll as well as the new ones and I don't cut them as wide as the tutorial suggests so they are not as bulky. This one was made with 1 inch strips.  A few weeks ago I pulled on a pair of socks and noticed a big hole in the heel.  I was about to drop them in the trash and wondered if they would be stretchy enough for my loom.  They are!  At least from the heel up.  Between the heel and toe they are too short.  I cut them in to 5/8 inch stips.  Since the socks were striped i...