Desire to Inspire Project 8 - Those Adorable Selvages Quilt-as-you-go Hot Pad Tutorial

Quilt-as-you-go Selvage Hotpads

7.5 x 7.5 inches

fabrics: "Miss Kitty's Colors" by Marie Cole for Henry Glass plus unknown white

Insul-Bright batting

Here it is, finally - the end of my "Miss Kitty's Colors" spree! This is such a fun collection from start to finish, including the selvages. I mean, Seriously! Who can see such adorable selvages and not have to do something with them? 

These wonky quilt-as-you-go hot pads are super easy. I chain-pieced three of them from step to step, so pictures are varied as to which pad is featured during the process.

You will need:

• background fabric for the front (I started with a 5 inch square)
• a scrap to fit a 3.5 inch square
• fusible material to fit a 3.5 inch square
• selvages for the wonky play - I cut mine at 2 to 2.5 inch widths (you can use regular scraps, see below)
• backing fabric (I started with a 9 inch square that I could trim down later)
• thermal batting like Insul-Bright
• some binding

For the center kitty faces, I simply used the guttings from my Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty applique prep. Here's the image for that again. The originals were printed out as a 4 x 4 inch square, but this project's faces are at the 3.5 inch square size. Just resize the jpeg before printing it if you want the same ratio.

You can right-click to save this image to work with.

There is ZERO sewing on this hot pad before the quilting stage. In fact, the only prep work is to fuse the kitty face into the center of your background fabric.

Layer your backing, some thermal batting, and your kitty face. Pin or spray baste.

First stitch your kitty face down. Once again, I just used my machine's blanket stitch setting.

It works just fine to stitch and quilt at the same time. Just don't speed sew here, and lessen the pressure of your presser foot. See: Just fine on the back:

Now take a selvage and lay it down at whatever angle floats your boat, right side up. Top stitch this down close to the selvage edge. 

Fold the selvage onto its face so you can trim away the excess backing fabric from your seam

Layer another selvage, angled along another side, and top stitch that one down. Make sure you overshoot the end of the first one's stitching line.

Now look at the back. The first stitching line could very well shoot beyond the intersection of the second one, as I had here by about an inch. 

You'll have a much nicer hot pad if you just flick those out with your seam ripper and tuck those tails. (Pull on that bobbin thread end, and the front thread will come through, giving you an easier flick area to work in. See the holes below, where I'd unstitched that line and then knotted the threads?)

Go back to the front and fold that second piece over so you can trim away the excess fabric under it. 

Just continue these steps until you've filled all the sides. 

On one of my pads, the fourth selvage left me short of full coverage. I grabbed a normal scrap to give it one more pass. And here's where you can see the difference in construction from the selvages.

This time, lay your scrap FACE DOWN over the previous fabric, so that it will flip over onto the area you need to cover. Don't just lay it down where you want it to be. 

Stitch a 1/4 inch seam from the scrap's raw edge. 

Flip you fabric over to where it needs be, and press it down. There you go!

Almost finished. Time to square these babies up to the size you want. 7.5 inches is a handy hot pad size. It's also helpful to run a zigzag stitching around the edges to keep things from flapping around during your final step.

Now you're ready to bind these babies. 

And put a hanging loop on it if you want. 

I used a decorative trim that was on my desk, because I intend to hang mine on my mini wall. It's occurring to me now that it's not the best trim for actual use, because the heat may melt it. . .  Ah, well. Better choice to be made next time!  ;D

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Take a look at the other projects I worked up from the "Miss Kitty's Colors" collection. If you might be interested in taking on the Henry Glass challenge, their information is included here. Don't let it intimidate you - I am just a normal private quilter, and I also had a much longer deadline than the usual 3 weeks, so I went a little crazy with my work.  :)   

#1 - "Love from Above for Emma" - original design
#2 - Jaycee's messenger bag
#3 - "Kitty Titty Power" with ruler tip 
#4 - Miss Kitty Winter Receiver
#5 - Travel packing bags
#6 - "Kitty Shuffle" - original with tutorial
#7 - "Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty" - original with tutorial
#8 - Selvages - with tutorial  (you are here)

This is one of my Q4 Finish Along pieces (My goal post link)

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I'll be linking up at:

Fabric Tuesday

Let's Bee Social

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

TGIFF, which is at Quokka Quilts this week

 (main site here)

   

WIP Wednesday #1 for me

I think I'll join along with Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday gang, if they'll have me.  ;D
I have such an amazingly long line of UFO's, I can use every motivational tool to turn those into WIPs and FINISHES!

This one is Marissa's Moment of Freakishness. So named because at 13 years old, she does NOT like sweet pinks and "girly" colors - give her black and neons! For some strange reason that we don't understand, though, the 3 Sisters Aviary charm packs grabbed her heart. Of course we had to buy a couple and some of the yardage, and this is (most of) the design I came up with. I need to put some leaves on those stems this week and then add the diagonal-print yardage around the edges to bring it to twin size. It has a coordinating pillow case, too! The heart yo-yo flower heads are only pinned on until the quilting has been done.

Marissa's Moment is not my only WIP, by far. In January I ransacked every storage space in my home and rounded up every single unfinished quilting project I could find. There were 36. No kidding!!!  Now, to be fair to myself, 3 of those were my children's (but they need my help to do the next stage) and 6 of those were adoptions from my cousin's WIPs when she died last year. But still - 27 of my very own UFO's!!!!

I like having a UFO list, even though most quilters shy away from the acronym and use the more positive WIP.  With "UFO," I get to have a "Firing Range" - and it sounds so fun right next to the BOM list.  (hehe - whatever makes the daunting list more fun!)

I have three more of those UFO's on the active WIP table, alongside a new project from my local guild's retreat last week. I was loathe to add that project because of my personal rule: No new projects until 8 UFOs have been completed. But I had a committment from months ago for the retreat, so there it is.

The new WIP is a tablerunner using 15" LeMoyne Star blocks. The class taught us a quilt-as-you-go technique that I really needed to learn in order to move forward on an old UFO king-size quilt. (So, does it really, REALLY count for being an entirely new project?)  ;D

Here it is after last night's progress. I only need to sew the borders on and bind it. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the borders today around my massive history readings. I've been snapping shots to work up a tutorial when I'm finished.


Dad's Wagon Wheels West Heritage Quilt is almost there! It's on Patty's longarm frame right now. She's putting the covered wagon and handcart motifs inside circles in each of the full blocks for me and I trust her to do something really cool with the sashing. When I get it back, I'll free-motion the family names of his pioneering ancestors on those Golden Threads papers around the edges in that triple inner border. Then I'll send it off to Dad, who's been patiently waiting since Christmas to get this really neat quilt. This should be finished before month's end!!  Three years in the making.

Devon's What a Hoot! Graduation quilt is also on the active table. I got the bodies glued on Monday, ready for satin-stitching in the next few days. 20 of those cute little buggers. I made this quilt last year for her sister, and it's really fun. Perfect for cheering up a blah dorm room! She chose blues and raspberries for her colors. (The owl blocks alternate with 16-patches and are surrounded by a white border with triple "ribbon" borders and Celtic-knot corners.)

The last active WIP is Lori's Irish Butterflies, which has a really fun story involving her kids. You can catch the full story at my blog from last week.  :)







This week's stats:
New projects - 1 (to learn a technique needed for an on-hold quilt)
Completed projects this week - 1 (free-motion quilting station is created!!!)
Actively in progress - 5 (same as last week)
UFO Firing Range - 34 (not counting untouched kits!)
Finishes for 2011 - 2

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Three charity wheelchair quilts
Katie Loves Christopher
Wagon Wheels West #2
Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Mr. Hernandez's)
Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Heather's)
Be Attitudes
We Love Kelly
Sailing with the Flying Needles
Poor Forgotten Orphan from 15 years ago