I make my own oven mitts. I found a pattern years ago that had a big fat thumb in the middle, instead of the more traditional small thumb on the side. Love the pattern (have no idea where I found it). It has no right or left, no sharp curves to sew or turn inside-out.
I admit, the old one is rather ratty. Rob has wanted me to replace it for months. It still works fine, although some of the fabric had burned through expose the terry cloth batting underneath. (Who touched the bare heating element? Not me!)
I'm a messy cook, so normally I choose dark colors for my mitts. This time, though, I went for durability and heat resistance. I picked what was left of my cotton upholstery fabric, stitching the heaviest onto the fingers and thumb. I use old bath towels for the batting. That's enough insulation for me but this time I went whole hog and added Insul-Bright to the palm of the mitt.
It was tough to sew, through layers of towel, Insul-Bright and heavyweight fabric. (Maybe next time I'll go with a Insul-Bright/cotton batting combo instead of adding it to the towel.) The little Singer 99 went through it all (10 layers at the joint!), skipping only a few stitches through the worst of it.
Isn't it so pretty and clean compared to the old one? I'm guessing it will stay clean about three baking days. If I'm careful. Ha. I got a chance to try it out the other night. Wow! the extra layer of Insul-Bright makes a difference. I couldn't feel any heat off the cookie sheets. It will get lots of use.
Sharing with Freemotion by the River's Linky Tuesday and
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I love these, my grandmother many, many years ago made these. Brings back wonderful memories.
ReplyDeleteBravo on stitching through all those layers! Great use of scraps. Thanks for linking up to #scraptastictuesday
ReplyDelete10 Layers? oh, really thick. I like your mitts. The Thumb in the middle look a little bit like Kermit the frog, but also very practice(real word?)
ReplyDeleteGreat idea and really scrappy.
Greetings from Germany
Iris
Very pretty! And I'm glad you mentioned the Insulbrite making a big difference. I bought a little piece of that ages ago, never having heard of it before but thinking I could make oven mitts with longer "sleeves" to protect my forearms when (clumsily) using the oven. I really ought to do that someday. Soon, even. This week I am excavating the Featherweight and clearing the table on the porch for sewing...it's a start!
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