wee and round oven gloves - tutorial

Materials:
enough fabric to cut out 4 circles of 7" diameter. They don't have to be the same fabrics.
*EDIT* I now make these using 8" circles.
5 circles of insulated wadding/batting the same size - or more or less depending on how heatproof your wadding/batting is.
Bias binding - I used 1¼" wide but you can use whatever width you've got. (If you want to know how to make your own, here's my tutorial for how to do that.)
6" or ribbon or bias binding for a hanger.

To make the pattern:
Draw 2 x 7" diameter circles out of paper.

Put the circles of paper on top of each other with the top one overlapping the lower one by 3". I made one of the circles red so it would be clearer what I did. At least, I hope it's clearer!

Cut out the overlap so you end up with your second circle looking like the one on the right in this diagram.

We'll call the full circle piece A and the circle with the cut-out, piece B.

Cutting out:
Fabric:
Using A, cut out 2 of fabric. One will be all seen, the other will only be partially seen.
Using B, cut out 2 of fabric. One will be all seen the other won't be seen at all - a good chance to get rid of some of that "what-was-I-thinking?" fabric. :oD
Wadding/batting:
Cut out 4 of A and 1 of B.

To make:
Place one of your B fabrics on your table with the right side facing the table. Put your wadding on top of that and then the other piece on top with the RS facing up. You should have a B sandwich with the RS of the fabrics facing outwards on each side and the wadding in the middle.
Pin together and sew about 1/8" from the edge all the way round. (This photo only shows the top curve sewn. You do need to sew around the whole shape.)

This is just to hold the pieces together. You could tack/baste it instead.

Pin RS of bias binding on the cut out edge making sure you pin it to the fabric you want to be showing.

Stitch ¼" away from the raw edge. Stitch slowly easing your bias binding around the curve neatly.

Turn your B piece over so you've now got what will be the inside facing you. Turn under ¼" on raw edge of the bias and pin it down putting your pins in vertically.

You're going to sew this from the other side so you need to put your pins in vertically so you can take them out as you sew.

Turn over again and stitch in the ditch of the seam where you sewed the bias on. You can hardly see the stitching which is the point of stitching in the ditch.

This is how it will look on the other side - the side that will be on the inside of the glove. It's not so neat but it's on the inside so it doesn't matter too much.

Cut off any excess bias binding at the ends:

Next make an A sandwich with your A pieces of fabric both with RS out and the 4 pieces of wadding in between. Stitch as close as you can get to the edge. It's pretty hard - aka impossible - to sew an 1/8" seam with so many layers but try to get as close as you can.

I find it easier to use my walking foot for that seam but, if you don't have one, just go slowly.

Lay your B piece on top of your A piece and pin at the the ends of the bias on the B piece.

With RS together, pin bias binding all the way around the edge of your circle. I start at the top as that will sort of be hidden by the hanger.

Ease the bias binding to fit the curves:

Stitch approx ¼" away from the edge.

Trim some of the fabric/wadding away from the edges. This makes the next bit much easier. Don't trim too close to the seam.

Turn your bias to the back, turn under ¼" on the raw edge of the bias and pin it down.

I prefer to hand sew the bias down but, if you'd rather machine stitch it, go for it. I just like the way it looks with a hand-sewn bias.

Please note - if you do hand sew it down, use the same colour of thread as your binding not the same colour as your fabric. It looks much neater done this way.

To make a hanger, you can use ribbon or the same bias as you used already. If you're using bias, press under ¼" on the long sides with your iron.

Then fold those raw bits inside and stitch down the edge.

Turn under about ½" on the ends and attach the hanger at the top of your glove. I stagger the ends so that I'm not expecting my machine to stitch through too many layers of fabric. (There would be 8 layers of bias, 2 layers of fabric and 4 layers of wadding if you stitched them on top of each other. Yikes!)

Attach a label if using and that's you done.

This is a small glove - more appropriate to taking lids off pans or taking the peas out of the microwave. I personally wouldn't use them to take baking trays out of the oven. They're a bit too wee for that.

wee and round

So, what did I want all that tartan bias binding for? Well, I wanted to make some wee and round oven gloves like this one:

I originally showed that glove in this post.

I'd made the Royal Stuart tartan bias binding last week and I made some Dress Stuart tartan bias binding on Saturday morning. It's a-ma-zing how much bias binding you can get out of a 22½" square! 9.30m - that's more than 10 yards. Wow!

So, that was me ready to get on with the oven gloves. Here's the Dress Stuart tartan one all done:

And here's the Royal Stuart tartan one done except for the hanger and label.

I've now made 2 with each tartan to match the pinnies I made earlier this month. Douglas took a photo with them all together: (I don't know why he put 2 of the oven gloves upside down. He *says* it was deliberate. Mmmmm)

Now I just need to get my act together and get them wrapped and sent to Debbie in Canada.

I've taken photos so I can do a tutorial for these gloves. Hopefully I'll get that done soon. :o)

sunrise ~ sunset 18 June

Only 3 days away from the longest day and the numbers have really slowed down now. I'm hoping to remember to take the screenshot on Thursday to see what the numbers are then. Then, after that, it'll be downhill again until the middle of December!

Today's figures are:

dawn to dusk = 19 hours and 45 minutes (7 minutes more than last week)

sunrise to sunset = 17 hours and 39 minutes (5 minutes more than last week)

how to make bias binding

I was at my local fabric shop today looking for tartan material to make some bias binding. Did they have any? Of course not! Why would anyone expect a fabric shop in Scotland to sell tartan material?? They did have bias binding in tartan but there was no way I was paying £1.95 for 2 metres of 1½" wide tartan when I only paid something like £3.50 for a metre of 115cm wide (45" wide in old money).

So home I came and decided to try and remember how to make my own bias binding. I'd done this myself many, many years ago so it was really only a matter of trying to remember how to do it. I was so chuffed that I did remember. Go me!

So, to save myself having to figure it all out again some time in the future, I decided to take photos of what I did. Next time I decide I want to make my own bias, I can just come and look at these photos.

Cut fabric into a square - mine is 15" square but that's only because that was as big as I could get out of the fabric I had. I called the corners A, B, C and D. Come on, I was a Maths teacher so we always have to name our corners! :oD

Cut along the diagonal AC.

Put the DC and AB edges together.

Sew with a ¼" seam. Press the seam open.

Place your fabric on your table with the long edges at the left and right. Starting at the left edge, draw lines the width of the bias you want to make. I made mine 1¼" wide so my lines are drawn 1¼" apart.

Continue all along the width of your fabric.

Bring the 2 short edges together and, starting at the left side, pin the first line of the front edge to the second line of the back fabric. There has to be a lug at both ends to give you a continuous line later to cut along. Also, the lines need to match ¼" down from the edge - not right at the edge. I pushed my pin in the top fabric ¼" down from the edge and then matched the line on the back to that pin.

Here are the lugs - or overhang as I called it in the second photo.

Sew that seam and press it open.

Go to the lug/overhang at the left side and start cutting all the way along the line.

You end up with a long length of fabric cut on the bias.

If you have more than one strip to join, make sure you overlap them properly to join them together.

Sew together then cut off those lugs:

And here is my bias binding - nearly 8 metres of the stuff from 2 15" squares.

Not too shabby! :o)

a re-make, a change and a pizza

This is the skirt I made last week re-made into a smaller size. Honestly, it took me so long to unpick it all, I'd have been better starting from scratch again. Never mind, it's done now and, hopefully, some time soon, we'll get weather warm enough to wear our summer clothes!!

We're going to my cousin's wedding in a couple of weeks - the one I made the quilt and wee bag for - and I didn't know what to wear. I wanted to wear a dress but was wary of making something only for it not to fit me or for me not to like it. So yesterday I tried on a few dresses I already had and decided to wear one of those but I wanted to make it shorter. By about 6"! It took me most of today to get it done (the dress is bias-cut so it wasn't as easy as it could have been) but I did it. And I *LOVE* it. I can see this dress getting worn much more often now that it's not down at my ankles! :o)

By the way, sorry about the glare from the window. I'm going to blame Douglas as he took the photo! :oD Oh and the first photo of me showing my hair without colour. I stopped dyeing it just before Christmas and it's almost all silver now. I have to say, I love it too!

And lastly, just because the photo was on my camera - because Joanna took it last night at teatime - here's what we had for tea last night. Bought pizza with adding toppings of mushrooms, tomatoes, sausages, pineapples and cheese. Yummmmmm.

Thanks to all for your best wishes on my tooth. It feels much better now - as do I. It really knocked me for 6 but I'm definitely on the mend now. I did make the mistake of looking into the gap with a mirror. I wish I hadn't looked! Not a pretty sight! Ewwwwwww! :oD

sunrise ~ sunset 11 June

Today's figures are:

dawn to dusk = 19 hours and 38 minutes (16 minutes more than last week)

sunrise to sunset = 17 hours and 34 minutes (12 minutes more than last week)

another day of "rest"

After getting my mum's shopping for her this morning and then later taking her to get her hair done, I decided - or rather my body did - that that was enough for one day. I tell you, getting a tooth out really takes it out of you - and not just the tooth! I feel like I've been punched in the face ... not that I would know how that feels as I've (thankfully) never had that done to me!

So, this afternoon, just like yesterday afternoon, I sat on the same couch reading the same Kindle beside the same sleeping dog. I also watched the same tennis - well, different matches but the same tournament. I did vary my day a wee bit by not doing any crocheting. Instead, I went through some magazines. I didn't get very far with that - it always takes longer than I think it will because I always read the magazines. Why can't I just skip through them? Or, even quicker, not open them at all?

One good thing about this afternoon is that I didn't sleep as much as I did yesterday so I'm taking that as a good sign that I'm on the way to full recovery - soon, please!

skirts and stuff

First of all a catch up on a skirt I made a few weeks ago for Joanna but forgot to take a photo of before I gave it to her. It was made using this pattern -

It's in navy blue poly viscose. I'll try and get a photo of it so I can keep my pages updated with what I've made this year.

Next I made myself as skirt at the weekend using this pattern:

I was really pleased with the skirt but am not showing it here in its finished state because this is how it looks right now.

I unpicked the side seams because the skirt is TOO BIG for me! Isn't that great? I am so pleased! It'll only take me a wee while to sew it back together - in a SMALLER SIZE!!! Yipppeeeeeee!! :oD

Now when that pattern was bought, Joanna and I both liked it so we agreed to only buy one version of it for both of us. I made the skirt for Joanna (in a much smaller size to my one!) in the Russian dolly material that has made a few appearances in the last couple of quilts I've made. She hasn't seen it yet but I think she's going to LOVE it!

And a close up of the dollies showing how well they match up at the pockets. I am so chuffed with this one too!

And, finally, I got a tooth out this morning. Want to know how many attempts the dentist took to get it out? 4 with him sitting down, 2 with him standing up before he gave up and drilled the tooth into 3 bits and hauled each piece out separately. To say I was traumatised is an understatement. So, this afternoon, there was no way I was going upstairs to the sewing room to do anything so I sat on the couch and did some crocheting, some Kindle reading, some snoozing and some French Open Tennis watching.

As you can see, I had company on the couch. My mouth is quite sore right now but I'll take some painkillers before I go to bed so that, hopefully, I'll manage to get a good night's sleep.

sunrise ~ sunset 4 June

Things are definitely slowing down as we head for mid-summer's day!

Today's figures are:

dawn to dusk = 19 hours and 22 minutes (24 minutes more than last week)

sunrise to sunset = 17 hours and 22 minutes (16 minutes more than last week)

quilt and wee bag - all finished

Today I was going to post the photos of the wee bag I made for my cousin's wee girl - the same cousin who's getting married and I made a quilt for - when I realised I hadn't shown the photos of the completed quilt. So I'll do that now as well. Apologies for the photo-heavy post.

Here's the quilt:

And close-ups of some of my favourite squares:

Cowboy bits, bright harlequin diamonds, blue planes and spots:

Silly cats, flowers and more spots:

Snails, music notes and spots: (and I just noticed the thread that always seems to find its way into the photos somewhere! LOL)

Russian dollies, frogs and spots:

Wellies, cupcakes and fuchsias ... and spots:

Ice lollies, scotty dogs, bones and more spots:

Fish, hearts, shells and more spots:

More tartan - the bride is Scottish after all! - and even more spots. And you can see the stripey binding in this photo too:

And now on to the wee bag I made for their wee girl.

The squares all sewn together, pinned and ready for quilting:

Quilted:

All sewn up with handles attached - first side:

Other side:

The pink bottom:

And the inside:

And here are the quilt and the wee bag together on the spare bed trying to not get too creased before I hand them over.

I am so chuffed with the way both of these turned out. I might even have to make myself a slightly bigger version of the wee bag! :oD