As maker’s, it’s time we fess up: scraps are a bit of an addiction. When we love a fabric, it’s hard to say goodbye after just one project. So into the stash basket they go, bits and pieces we can’t wait to use again. This ScrapBusters project is a great reason to pull out some of the prettiest, most colorful fabrics from your scrap stash. Blend them together into a happy mix of pattern and color. Each oven mitt uses up to four different fabrics. Wouldn’t these make a great wedding or housewarming gift?

We dove into the Sew4Home scrap stash for our selections and chose the following:

Medium Dots on Orange from the Cotton Dots collection by Riley Blake Designs (originally used for our Decorative Stitch Color Pop Pillows)

Mum Toss in Turquoise from the Up Parasol collection by Heather Bailey for FreeSpirit Fabrics (originally used for our Shorter Style Triple Flounce Apron)

Tiny Gingham in Lime by Michael Miller Fabrics (originally used for our Kids’ Round Storage Bins)

Tudor Windows in Tart, Bats in the Belfry in Plum, Tent Stripe in Sky, and Pearls of Wisdom in Sky – all from the Elizabeth collection by Tula Pink for FreeSpirit Fabrics (originally used for both our Market Tote Trio and our Tudor Style Apron)

We used one layer of Insul-Bright insulted fleece between our fabric layers. This is great for normal use.

You could use a double layer for added heat protection, but you’d then want to increase the width of the binding to accommodate the additional thickness.

If you like the look of our ruffly oven mitts, you’ll also like our ruffly Triple Flounce Apron from which we got one of our scraps. An apron and oven mitt bundle would be an extra special gift idea.

Or, slip a handmade recipe card or two into the pocket of the oven mitt with your own favorite family recipes. It’s a sweet way to share some lovin’ from the oven.

Each oven mitt finishes at approximately 7½” wide x 9½” high and includes a grommet for hanging.

Sewing Tools You Need

• Sewing Machine and standard presser foot
• Walking or Even Feed foot; optional but helpful with the thicker layers, or engage your machine’s built-in fabric feeding system, such as the AcuFeed™ Flex system we use on many of our Janome studio models

Fabric and Other Supplies

NOTE: As mentioned above, each oven mitt uses four fabrics. Of course, you could reduce the variety if desired, but part of the fun of this project is the colorful mixing and matching. The quantities below are for ONE hot pad.

• ½ yard of Fabric 1 for the outer binding, pocket binding, pocket ruffle, and hanging tab
• Minimum 8″ wide x 10″ high scrap of Fabric 2 for the bottom panel
• Minimum 8″ wide x 10″ high scrap of Fabric 3 for the top base panel
• Minimum 16″ wide x 10″ high scrap of Fabric 4 for the front and back pocket panels
• ¼ yard of 22″+ wide insulated fleece: we used Insul-Bright by The Warm Company
• Scrap of lightweight fusible interfacing for the hanging tab; we used Pellon Shir-Tailor
• ONE large metal grommet and a grommet tool; we used Dritz Extra Large Eyelets
• All purpose thread to coordinate with fabrics
• See-through ruler
• Iron and ironing board
• Scissors or rotary cutter and mat
• Fabric pen or pencil
• Seam gauge
• Seam ripper
• Straight pins

Getting Started and Pattern Download

1. Download and print TWO copies of the pattern page, which contains two patterns: Oven Mitt Front and Pocket
   IMPORTANT: This pattern is ONE 8½” x 11″ sheet. You must print the PDF file at 100%. DO NOT SCALE to fit the page. There is a guide line on the page so you can confirm your final printout is to scale.
2. Cut out each pattern along the solid line.
3. Find the two Oven Mitt Front printouts, flip over one printout so the printed side is facing down. Line up the center line arrows and tape the pattern together to make one complete pattern piece. Repeat with the two Oven Mitt Pocket printouts.
4. From Fabric 1 for the outer binding, pocket binding, pocket ruffle, and hanging tab, cut the following:
   Enough 2½” strips ON THE BIAS to create a finished length of approximately 45″
   NOTE: If you are new to working with bias binding, we have a good tutorial to review.
   ONE 2¼” x 14″ strip for the ruffle
   ONE 4″ wide x 3½” high rectangle for the hanging tab
5. From Fabric 2 for the bottom panel, use the assembled front pattern to fussy cut ONE piece.
6. From Fabric 3 for the top base panel, use the assembled front pattern to fussy cut ONE piece.
7. From Fabric 4 for the pocket panel, use the assembled pocket pattern to fussy cut TWO pieces.
   
8. From the insulated fleece, cut the following:
   Using the front pattern, cut ONE piece
   Using the pocket pattern, cut ONE piece
9. From the interfacing, cut ONE 3″ x 3″ square.

At Your Sewing Machine & Ironing Board

Layering and quilting

1. Layer both the main panel and the pocket into a “quilt sandwich.” To do this, place the insulated fleece between the two pieces of fabric. The fabric should be wrong sides together.
2. The main panel will have two different fabrics, each facing right side out.
   
3. Pin together through all three layers.
   
4. The pocket panel with have the same fabric on each side of the insulted fleece, again – the fabric is facing right side out.
   
5. Pin together through all three layers.
6. Thread the machine with thread to best coordinate with all your fabrics. We used an off-white for our quilting. Lengthen the stitch.
7. Straight-line quilt (sometimes called channel quilting) through all the layers of each quilt sandwich. You are simply stitching parallel lines.
   
8. We used the stripes on one of our selected fabrics as the spacing guide for our straight line quilting. This gave us lines approximately ½” apart. You can do something similar with the motif on your chosen fabric, or you could use a quilting bar to set an even distance, or you can pre-draw lines to follow.
   NOTE: Any time you’re working on the right side of your fabric, make sure your marking tool is one that will easily wipe away or will vanish with exposure to the air or the heat of any iron. 

Pocket ruffle

1. Find the 2¼” x 14″ ruffle strip. Fold the strip in half lengthwise, wrong sides together. Press well.
   
2. Run a gathering stitch across the top raw edges of the folded strip.
   
   NOTE: If you are new to this technique, we have a great tutorial on machine gathering.
3. Fold the strip in half to find the center and mark with a pin along the raw edges.
4. Find the quilted pocket panel. Fold it in half as well to find the center along the curved top edge. Mark this point with a pin.
5. Align the two pins.
   
6. Pull the basting stitch to gather the ruffle strip to fit the curved top of the pocket. First gather up one side…
   
7. Then gather up the second side. Adjust the gathers so they are even and pin in place along the entire curved top of the pocket. The raw edges of the gathered strip should be flush with the raw edges of the pocket panel.
   
8. Machine baste the ruffle in place, running the seam close to the raw edges.
   

Prepare the binding

1. Stitch together the bias strips end to end to make one continuous length. As with all binding, criss-cross the angled ends of the strips. Pin together. Draw a diagonal line across the intersection.
2. Stitch along the drawn line. Then, trim back the excess fabric to approximately ¼” and press open the seam.
3. Repeat at all the intersections of the remaining strips.
   NOTE: As mentioned above, if you are new to working with bias binding, check out our tutorial on Figuring Yardage, Cutting, Making and Attaching. 
4. Fold the completed binding strip in half, wrong sides together, and press to set a center crease.
5. Open up the binding wrong side up so the crease line is visible. Press in each long side ½”.
   
6. Re-fold again, wrong sides together, along the original center crease line, aligning the folded edges. Press flat.
   
7. From the finished binding, cut one 8½” length and one 34″ length.

Finish the pocket

1. Find the 8½” length of binding. Open up one side fold and the center fold, leaving the opposite side fold intact. Place this un-folded raw edge along the top curved edge of the pocket, sandwiching the ruffle between the layers. Re-pin through all the layers.
   
2. Stitch the binding in place, running the seam just to the right of the visible crease line.
   
3. Wrap the binding up and over to the back of the pocket panel. Pin the folded edge in place at the back. That folded edge should cover and fall below the seam line.
4. Edgestitch the binding in place from the front. Your front seam should be as close as possible to the binding/ruffle seam. Go slowly and carefully to insure you are catching the back fold in your seam.
   
5. Find the main quilted panel. Place it top side up (Fabric 3 side in our sample). Place the pocket over the main panel, right side up.  Match the curved raw bottom edges of the two panels and lightly pin in place through all the layers. Press.
   
6. Baste the pocket in place along the sides and across the bottom.

Create the hanging tab

1. Find the 4″ x 3½” fabric rectangle and the 3″ x 3″ interfacing square. Center the interfacing on the wrong side of the fabric.
2. Following manufacturer’s instructions, fuse the interfacing in place.
3. Fold the tab in half right sides together. Pin in place along the 4″ side and across one end.
   
4. Using a ¼” seam allowance, stitch along the 4″ side and across the one end, pivoting at the corner.
5. Clip the corner and press open the seam allowance.
   
6. Turn right side out through the open end. If necessary, use a long, blunt end tool, like a chopstick, knitting needle or point turner, to gently push out the corners so they are nice and square. Press flat.
7. Mark the placement for the hanging grommet. There should be  ¾” from the center of the grommet’s hole to the finished end.
   
8. Insert the grommet, following manufacturer’s instructions or our own handy tutorial on inserting metal grommets.
   
9. Flip the mitt to the plain (non pocket) panel. Find the center of the top raw edge and mark with a pin. Place the raw end of the tab at this center point. The raw end of the tab should be flush with the raw edge of the oven mitt. The tab is right side up. Pin in place. Machine or hand baste in place close to the raw edges.
   

Final binding

1. Trim away any excess pocket ruffle/binding.
   
2. Find the remaining length of folded bias binding.
3. As above, unfold the bias binding so you can see two of the three crease lines.
4. Flip the oven mitt pocket side up.
5. Starting at the center bottom, pin the unfolded length of bias binding, right sides together, around the entire perimeter of the panel. You are aligning the raw edge of the binding with the raw edges of the mitt panels.
   
6. At the head of the binding, turn under the end ½”. Overlap the tail of the binding with this folded edge, and trim the end of the tail to align. You want to binding to lay nice and flat all around. Don’t be afraid to use lots of pins.
   
7. Sew all the way around. As above with the pocket binding, you are stitching just inside the crease line.
   
8. Bring the binding up and over to the opposite side. Press the binding in place and pin well all around. As above, the folded edge of the binding should completely cover the existing perimeter seam.
   
9. Edgestitch the binding in place from the pocket side (what we consider the “top” of the oven mitt). Remember, in binding work, the number one rule is “slow and steady wins the race.” You’re sewing around a curve, which is trickier than a straight line, and you are binding several layers. If you have a Walking or Even Feed foot or a built-in fabric feeding system, it will make the job easier.
   
10. Stop and start your final seam at the center bottom where the binding overlaps.