Quick and Easy Quilted Potholder

I recently took a trip to Pennsylvania for a friend's wedding. She lives smack-dab in Amish country, so every gift shop and market I visited was chock full of quilted crafts. Pot holders, pillows, reusable shopping bags, wall hangings and of course, some beautiful and amazing quilted blankets.

I decided I wanted to try a little bit of quilt-crafting myself, and since winter is upon us, I grabbed some holiday fabric from the Reuse Centre and got to work.

I started out trying to make a fancy star like I'd seen in so many Pennsylvania gift shops, but quickly realized I was in over my head! I started over with a simpler design of diagonal strips of patterned fabric, surrounded by a border of plain red.

This quick, easy project took so little fabric that I probably could have made at least five pot holders from the small rolls I picked up! I used my machine for most of the sewing, but this could easily be done by hand with a little patience.

Instead of purchasing quilt batting for the inside, I used two layers of leftover fleecy fabric that I already had in my fabric stash. The hanging loop is a scrap of ribbon cut out of the shoulder of a shirt, making this project 100% reused.

It doesn't quite rival the meticulously stitched works of art I saw stateside, but I'm pretty pleased with how my little potholder turned out. Maybe I'll even work my way up to fancy stars one of these days, too!

-Sarah (Volunteer)

All photographs provided by Sarah