SCRAPPY, CRAZY Quilted Potholders

Is it Scrappy quilting? Or quilt as you go?  Or maybe Crazy quilting.  Better yet...a bit of each?

I'm not sure of the quilting method featured below, though it's grabbed my creative juices with a vengeance, and seems to have taken over many a stitcher's site throughout the net these days.

I'll post a tutorial next week on my own scrappy project; for now, lets look around cyber land in the creative nooks of cyber-quilters and get a feel for this easy, ancient - yet also new method of making the pretties that grace our kitchens.

Christine from www.every-day-mom.blogspot.com, made some showy and creative potholders for gifts this year.  Her tutorial is quite detailed and clear - a good place to research if you wish to learn this great scrap-busting quilting process.

Then there is a scrappy-type String Quilt process tutorialed (is that a real word??) by Penny at www.sewtakeahike.typepad.com.  This method also uses scraps but in a more organized, repetitive, traditional quilting fashion. Even though this is a quilt example and not a potholder, the method is the same - and much easier for potholders since 2 blocks...completes the project!  Take notice how Penny arranged the string blocks so they look like regular square blocks on the finished quilt; neat!

Deborah Schlegel from Art Threads has a tutorial on www.favequilts.com, that details, step by step, how to create stunning, round potholders fit for a queen's galley. Her photos are clear and her instructions, easy to follow.

Last but most varied, this Etsy site, http://www.etsy.com/search?includes[0]=tags&q=patchwork+pot+holder&page=1, goes on for pages with seemingly every type of home-made potholder imaginable. Several appear to be the scrappy look featured here today. Sometimes I find that looking through someone else's creativity - even if a bit off-track from my present focus, can spark new and unique imaginings in my usually fizzing brain.  One can never have TOO many imaginings, right?  RIGHT!

Here's a video on yet - another, slightly organized version of this scrappy quilting process.






Wow!  Does this type of quilting have any limits?!  From traditional shaping to absolutely any design - or lack thereof.  The limits stop only as far as your imagination of lines, colors, textures..that you create at any given time.

Do you have a scrappy project you might want to share here?  Maybe you've found a little trick that helps the way the odd pieces go together, or maybe you found an easier method for binding (hate, hate, hate to bind anything!!)  I DIDN'T SAY THAT! Seriously...there MUST be an easy binding method...it just hasn't been invented yet???

Let is know that you stopped by and please leave a comment. You will automatically be entered into our free potholder contest...drawing to be held on February 1st, 2013.

Happy sewing.  And remember, when it comes to potholders...there's always room for one more!

Danielle