Hot Pads and Lots of Fat Quarter Ideas

In early February, I signed up for a fun fabric swap that Amanda at Ninth Street Notions put together.  We were instructed to pick out 5 fat-quarters of material and send them to our partner.  Then  make something out of the fabric you were sent.  Sounds fun, huh!

My first task, go shopping - I can do that.  I found some really, really cute, super fun material to send to my partner.  I wish I had taken a picture or paid attention to the name or something, but it was really bright turquoise and red, polka dots and flowers of different sizes.  (I think I'm going to have to go get me some to make some more of these projects I found.)

Then I waited to see what material I'd be working with.  In the meantime, I started looking for uses of fat-quarters and pinned a bunch of ideas (I'll share in a minute.)  Finally my material came and this is what I got to work with:

The funny thing is, I have a table runner half finished with very similar material/colors.  So then I had to narrow down my project list.  A table runner was out, like I said, I have a similar one.  I didn't really need another bag, my sister has made me a bunch of them.  Oh, and I'm not a really great seamstress -  wait, I'm not even good enough to be called a seamstress, let's just go with sewer - so I didn't want to tackle anything too tricky yet.  Finally my inspiration came as my husband burned his hand, again, while taking something out of the oven and started cussing and grumbling about how we need some good hotpads.  That's it!

So I bought some Insul-Bright batting - it's batting with a metallic/mylar stitched into one side, making it heat or cold reflective.  Like this:



Then I found this super easy tutorial here.  This was so simple, and she did such a good job of it, I didn't redo the tutorial.  I'll just share what I learned.  I tore the strips the length of the fat-quarter, giving me enough length for two strips.  Same with the backing piece, so after I finished the first one I had another one all ready to go - matching set. :) Also, after looking a little closer at the hot pad Bill burned his hand on and seeing it did use the Insul-Bright, too, I used two layers of the batting, making sure that the metallic side (which reflects the heat) was facing out.   It was really quite fun and rewarding to have something I made myself to be so useful. lol  I gave them a good test and am happy to report no burnt hands.

As I said, I found a lot of fat-quarter ideas, some simpler than others, so at $1-2/fat-quarter you can try out many of these fun things:
50 Scrap & Remnant Ideas
Sprocket Pillows - this is really cute!
Cloth Napkins
Ipod/Camera Case - if you noticed, I didn't use the gray/orange print from up above. This is what I'll be making with that material, a case for my new video camera I got for my birthday.
Handbag - really want to get more of the turquoise/red material and make this
Tiered Ruffled Skirt - my girls might be getting some of these soon. :)
Poochie Bags - the name makes me laugh, but they're cute.

That's just a few that I pinned, there are TONS of ideas/tutorials out there for fat-quarters.  So grab a few quarters and have some fun sewing!


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