Day 1: Paper Pieced Heart Potholder

[Vanessa]

Today, we're going to gather our supplies and prepare our pattern.

First gather your supplies:

-woven scraps for piecing front
-a 9" square piece for the back
-enough to make a piece of binding 2.5" by 40" or so. You can make this out of a single width of fabric, join it, make it out of scraps, etc.
--one 9" square piece of Insulbright
-1-2 9" pieces quilt batting

Next, decide which version of the project you would like to make. The simple version has fewer pieces, but the techniques on both are identical and either will be very easy to do. Print it out on standard printer paper. Be sure to select "none" for page scaling as well as ignoring any warning about printing in the margins.

After it's printed, cut it out along the outside lines. You should end up with a 7.5" square piece of paper that looks like this:



(If your paper doesn't measure exactly 7.5", it won't be a big deal for this project because we're only using one block. If you wanted to make an entire quilt, though, you'd need to find the printing problem and correct it because small discrepancies are multiplied when piecing together lots of blocks.)

If you have any questions, just ask.

Tomorrow, we start sewing! Day 2

[SynEpona]

Vanessa ... since it's just one block, could I enlarge it and make a pillow cover instead, w/o any major issues? I think a pillow would be more useful in our house than yet another potholder

[Vanessa]

Vanessa ... since it's just one block, could I enlarge it and make a pillow cover instead, w/o any major issues? I think a pillow would be more useful in our house than yet another potholder

That should work just fine. I think I'd use a bigger SA around the outside.

[jerigirl]

Is the 10 inch square for the backing fabric just to be sure we have enough excess? The backing I want to use is coming up a bit short. Probably between 9-9.5 inches.

[Vanessa]

Yes. You'll be fine. I was originally going to make it a little larger, and then I realized that printers can't print all the way to the margins. I'll change that. Thanks for the reminder.

[Vanessa]

Anyone else playing along? I'm going to post the next part in the morning.

[jerigirl]

Yes. You'll be fine. I was originally going to make it a little larger, and then I realized that printers can't print all the way to the margins. I'll change that. Thanks for the reminder.

Great! Thanks. Can't wait to get started!

[gathba]

Hi, I lurk here far more than anything, but I wanted to let you know that I used your tutorial and I had so much fun! Thank you so much and now I want to make more quilts!

Betsy =)