Pot Holders, Baby! Pot Holders!

For the past year now I've been sewing monthly blocks as a part of Heal at do.  Good Stitches, a sewing circle that makes quilts for hospice patients and their families.  I have to say that when Nicke asked me to be a part of the circle I was very hesitant to join - not because I don't think it's an amazing idea (because I do), but because a quilter I am not.  Quilting is all about precision and accuracy and I operate in the world of "good enough" and "close enough."  I was truly worried that after about one month I would be kindly asked to remove myself from the Flickr group, but somehow after twelve months they're still  putting up with me.  And that in itself is a true testament to the kindness and grace of these women.

With the craziness of the holidays the group decided to take a little break from sewing blocks and participate in a sewing swap.  Can I confess that I'm a sewing swap virgin?  I've never participated in one and so I spent a lot of time brainstorming about what to sew for someone who no doubt has much greater skills than myself.  In the end, I settled on a potholders because

1) who doesn't need new potholders? and

2) it doesn't really matter if they're perfect because they're just going to get food all over them.

After trolling the internet for ideas, I ended up settling on this little one by Amy and it was absolutely lovely to sew except that it doesn't note what the seam allowance should be when you sew on the binding and so for my first potholder I used too large of a seam allowance making it so that I couldn't get my binding all the way over all those layers of Insulbrite (and there are A LOT of layers of Insulbrite).  That potholder is now the reject potholder that resides in my kitchen (score for me!).  On the other two I used a scant 3/8" seam allowance to sew on the binding and it worked perfectly.
As for the fabric I tried to mostly use what I had leftover from other projects, but the recipient happens to be a lover of the combination of orange and purple so I did run out and purchase some dark purple Luxe In Bloom purple fabric for the binding.

Hopefully she loves them.  And hopefully all those layers of Insulbrite do their job and she doesn't end up burning herself when using them - because maiming someone during your first sewing swap is probably a bad thing.

PS - One of the little chocolate sticking out is from Justin's... have you ever tried them?  They make some seriously delicious chocolate and peanut or almond goodies.  Seriously delicious.