Zakka Style Sew Along week 13 - Patchwork Potholders

I know, I know, I'm late.  I did manage to upload the picture of my finished potholders to Flickr to enter the giveaway, I just didn't have time to blog.  I didn't win the giveaway, but my potholder was featured!  Go and have a look!

The link up post is here, it's too late to link up, but you can see the other entries.  I don't think I'm going to join in with week 14 - the bottle holder, but if you want to, the link up is here, and this week's host is here.

So, back to my patchwork potholder.  I'd been reading that some people were finding the binding tricky, so I was a little worried.  I armed myself with the tutorial downloaded from Retro Mama's blog.  She's an amazing pattern designer, the cute little bunnies and elephant I made were from her patterns.

Oh, I'm getting distracted again, where were we?  Oh yes, potholder!  I decided to make a rainbow.  7 strips were required so that fit perfectly, I left off the linen strip.  I cut the pieces from the leftovers from the Robert Kaufman jelly roll I bought ages ago (I used it to make these wedding placemats).

Then I jabbed it with pins and began quilting.  I think I read somewhere that you should always quilt in the same direction.  So I did.

Hmm.  Maybe I'd read that you should quilt in different directions each time...  Anyone?

I quilted lines randomly spaced.  I'm not over the moon with it.  My quilting is rubbish, I can't sew in a straight line and my sewing machine was being an arse.  I'm not sure you can see from these pictures but the stitches are not neat.

I matched the thread for each section to the fabric.  Want to see the back?

What a mess!  The binding, on the other hand, was simple!  I didn't struggle with it at all.  Now, I'm not saying it's perfect, or even that it looks good, but it's on there!

The instructions told us to bind the back of the pockets with the linen too, but I went for one of the colour strips.

I'm not overly happy with this project and I don't think I'd make it again, mainly because it seems a bit useless.  I don't think potholders are particularly British.  We tend to use oven gloves, either double or single mitts.  I've never even seen a potholder in real life, let alone used one and I'm not sure how to use it!


Don't forget to enter my Something Old, Something New competition.  The deadline is 31st July and there is a prize!