Little Boys Sew Potholders

I have not had much time to sew lately with the family reunion a week ago and then we had our two grandsons visiting this week for several days.  We had a great time but little boys that are 5 years and 8 years have lots of energy.  They love to play outside all around the farm and have great imaginations.  I think they pretended they were Star Wars characters most of the time and they use old croquet mallets as their light sabers and kept us safe from all those bad guys the whole time they were here!

We did do a little sewing while they were here though.  I chose a very easy project for them to work on.  They made 3 pot holders from blue jean fabric and a square of pretty fabric.  The potholders are raw edged and so, so easy, plus they can be very imperfect and still be great potholders.

First we cut 2 squares of denim from old worn out blue jeans.  Two of these potholders were made  7 1/2” and one 8 1/2”.  The seams are all on the outside and will ravel out a bit as they are used and laundered but that is OK as that is what they are supposed to do. 

They chose a fabric they liked for the top of the potholders….two with a western theme with horses and cowboys for them and one with butterflies and flowers for their mother.  This fabric was cut 1” smaller than the denim square.  There is a piece of cotton batting cut about 1/2” smaller than the pretty fabric too.

To make these potholders this is what we did….First we centered the pretty fabric on the batting, pretty side out.  We centered them on one piece of the denim and marked an X and a plus sign on the pretty fabric then stitched the lines with a straight stitch to to hold it all together.  Easy for kids to do so far… right?

The next thing we did was stitch their names on the back of the second piece of denim.  They chose the letters on the machine to program in the name and then stitched it out.  That was really fun for them to see the sewing machine stitch the letters out  one by one.  On the one they made for their mother they stitched “Mommy”.  The 5 yr. old insisted it had to be “Mommy”, not Mom, Mother or Mama.

The last step was to layer the denim square with the stitched names to the outside, then the stitched sandwich with the denim square next to denim square and pretty side up.  I let them choose embroidery stitches to stitch next to and on the outside of the pretty fabric and they each chose to change the stitch on each side.

The squares did not stay exactly lined up and the stitching was not perfect but these will be loved and used for a long time and really are great potholders to protect hands from getting burned.  Both boys were so proud of them and excited to show them to their parents.

The 5 year old told me he loves, loves, loves to sew.  I chuckled at that as he sat between my legs and just ran the foot pedal that was placed on two catalogs to make it high enough for him.  I did slow the speed down as I had a hard time “driving” as he told me I was doing with the fabric since he liked to sew fast.

A great time but this grandma needed a little rest after they went home.  It is amazing how “quiet” is so very nice.

Until Later,
Lynn