It’s the first Monday in November & that means Christmas will be here before we know it y’all! A majority of my gifts are handmade {big surprise}, so it’s time to take stock & fill in some gift holes. : ) Handmade gifts don’t have to be a major production. I usually look for things that are quick & easy but not cheesy. To me that means something I put some thought into & didn’t slap together just to have a gift. These upcycled sweatshirt hot pads are a perfect example of that! So easy to whip up & perfect to include in a basket of homemade food goodies. I’m also announcing the winner of the Merry Moosemas Quilt Kit today, so be sure to read all the way to the bottom to see who won!
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Old Sweatshirt
I showed y’all these two sweatshirts in my Sewvember post as candidates for an upcycled fashion project. I am working with parts of both for that project {sneak peak at bottom}, but some parts won’t be used.
Like this sleeve off the one on the right…
Sweatshirt material is great for hot pads because it’s fairly thick & dense. It’s designed to keep you warm & provide a barrier between you & outside elements.
I cut four 6″ squares from the sleeve using my long ruler, rotary cutter, & mat. I angled the sleeve so the grain of the fabric was parallel to the cutting lines on the mat. This will keep it from moving as much when you stitch the two layers together.
I stacked these on top of each other with wrong sides facing in. You could just simply sew around the edges & be done, but I want to take this to another level. Remember – easy not cheesy! ; )
Marking a Grid
Marking a grid for quilting is super easy using a square ruler & tailor’s chalk. I prefer using tailor’s chalk for this type of material because using a pencil or pen tends to pull on the thread more.
A square ruler usually has a 45 degree diagonal line running in at least one direction. This makes it very easy to line up with the edge & mark diagonal lines. I used 1″ for spacing &, to keep this as accurate as possible, I looked at the 3 points marked in the picture above.
My ruler is only 6″ square, so I had to slide it to mark all the way across at some points. Here it is all marked up & ready to quilt…
I will be using my walking foot for this to help keep things from moving too much. This can be a problem with stretchy fabrics! I’m also using a 100/16 ball point needle. There are many sizes of ball point needles &, just like regular needles, they are meant for different weights of knits.
Stitching Pattern
I used a dark red denim thread for the topstitch & a tan, regular weight thread in the bobbin. Start stitching about 1/4″ from the edge on a center line.
I stitched on the line, stopping about 1/4″ from the edge. Then I sewed parallel to the edge until I got to the next line. I did this until all lines & edges were stitched. This allowed me to quilt the whole hot pad without cutting thread. I did travel over previous stitches sometimes, as you can see in the picture.
Here is the back with contrasting thread…
You can see my stitches look bunched up at that bottom left corner. That’s because the corner got stuck under my walking foot & I was still trying to sew – so watch out for that!
For the second hot pad I used a wavy decorative stitch on my machine. I just followed the line with the center of the walking foot & let the stitch take it’s course. Since this is a wavy stitch, I stitched from one side to the other instead of traveling.
I stitched around the edges with a straight stitch to help hold things in place & trimmed it all up.
The lines are really easy to remove. I just rubbed most of it off with my hand!
A damp cloth will take care of what’s left. Here’s the back of the second one…
Now I have two hot pads ready for gift giving!
I can even tell the receiver they were made out of an old sweatshirt!
Winner & Sneak Peak
This is a sneak peak of what I have so far on my upcycled fashion project. It’s combining my old gray sweater & sweatshirt parts.
I may do a blog post in the future about it & I’ll definitely show the finished project in a monthly roundup. Now for what everyone’s waiting for!
I used a real Christmas type method to pick the winner! All the names went into a bowl & I drew one out to be the winner. We use this for Christmas gift giving in my family all the time!
And the winner is….
Deborah you are the winner! Please send me your mailing address within 48 hours so Wendy can mail you your prize! I hope to see pictures of the finished quilt too! Congrats! : D
Pin it for later!
