It’s finally time for the last in my Autumnal Pocketed Pot Holder series, the mushroom! The construction is super similar to the acorn, so if you handled that one okay then you’ll be able to do this one, too! I used fabric from my stash for all three pot holders; these are a fantastic way to use up small scraps that are too big to chop up for stuffing, but awkwardly not enough for your average project. The red of the mushroom top for this pot holder is from a small piece of really cute fabric I was gifted that had sewing machines on it; I’ve been saving it for ages because it was quite a small piece and I’m so happy to have finally been able to use it! Every time I look at these pot holders hanging in my kitchen, they make me happy, and I’ve been using them every day since I made them, they’re incredibly useful, and can see myself making a lot more of them in the future! I’m loosely planning seasonal and festive ones and changing them regularly. I’ve included two different sizes of the template because I made my pocketed pot holders to fit my teeny tiny hands, but they’re too small for my husband to use comfortably, so we came up with the idea of making a larger size, too. Either way, just print the template ‘fit to page’ for either A4 or standard letter for those of you in the U.S. and away we go!
What You Need:
• Cotton or wool fabric for outer, inner, and bias binding of pumpkin
• Cotton or wool batting or fabric for the lining
• Downloadable Template
• Scissors
• Washable marker or tailor’s chalk
• Thread
Notes on fabrics – You are going to be using these to hold potentially very hot items, so it’s very, very important that your fabrics can stand up to that heat, which is why you must use either cotton or wool. Your batting also needs to be cotton or wool, and it can be actual batting or multiple layers of cotton or wool fabric if that’s what you have to hand, just do more layers if you don’t have thick fabric or batting. It also doesn’t matter what it looks like because it’s going to be sandwiched in between your outer and inner fabrics. I had just finished cutting out a thick cotton fleece hoodie for my husband, so I used the scraps of that for my batting, two layers inside each pot holder. If you have a fabric that you’re not sure of the fibre composition, you can do a burn test. Stand at your sink with a small piece of your fabric and light it on fire. If the fabric continues to burn after being lit, and leaves ash residue once you blow the flame out, then you’ve got a natural fibre. It’ll also smell kind of like burnt hair. If the flame goes out and leaves small, hard, balls, or shrivels to a hard edge where it was burnt, and has a plastic-y scent, then it’s polyester and not safe to use for a pot holder.
Step 1
The first step is, as always, to pre-wash and iron your fabrics. Then, put together your fabric ‘sandwich’ of the inner fabric, batting (or layers of thick fabric in lieu of batting) and outer fabric. I used the same inner and outer for my mushroom stem and caps which means that the front, back, and inside of the pockets of the mushroom will look the same. You could mix it up and have white mushroom on one side, brown on the other, or go with the fly amanita toadstool style like I have, or an inky cap or whatever you like! Use your marker to draw the outlines of your mushroom caps and stems (after cutting the cap from the stem of your printed template), but don’t cut anything out yet.
Step 2
Now it’s time to quilt your caps and stems! I went with a few circles on the caps, and some wavy lines on the stems. Fun fact, I just learned that the stem part of a mushroom is called a ‘stipe’ which is fun because I chose a striped fabric and quilted in wavy stripes!
After quilting your mushrooms, cut them out!
Step 3
The next step requires bias binding, so now it’s time to make some! Start by cutting 2.5cm or 1’’ strips of fabric, on a 45-degree angle to the grain of the fabric. This means they will have a little stretch, making them go round curves easier than fabric cut on the straight grain. You can cut your strips from either of your mushroom fabrics, or a contrast one, it’s up to you and your stash! Once you have a few strips cut, you’re going to overlap the ends at a right angle, as shown below, and sew diagonally across where the two strips meet. Trim off the excess and you’ll have a nice long strip of bias tape!
Step 4
Apparently, I forgot to take photos of this particular step on the mushroom, but luckily, I did for the acorn! The next step is to bind the straight edge of the mushroom stem and most of the straight edge of the mushroom cap. Before you bind them, though, you need to cut 1cm or ½ inch off the top edge of one of your mushroom stems. This is to make it easier to use the pocket function of your pot holder when it’s finished. Lay the binding along the straight edge of your stem, right sides together (which means either have your binding underneath your piece with right side facing up, or on top of your piece right side facing down, either is fine at this point) and sew with a .5mm or ¼ inch seam allowance. After you sew that down, flip the binding up and pull it around to the other side of your stem. Turn in the raw edge of your binding and topstitch it down. Do this to both stems, and then along the straight edge of your caps, but not all the way to each end, just a little further than the caps are wide.
Step 5
Pick the mushroom cap you like least (because this is going to be the back of your pocketed pot holder) and the full length stem, and lay the bound edge of the stem on top of the bound edge of the cap, and sew them together. Go slow because you’re sewing through a lot of layers at this point.
Step 6
Now it’s time to sew the two caps together! Place the unconnected cap on top of the cap that you just sewed the stem onto, right side facing up. Make sure that the stem is overlapping the cap on the bottom, because that is the inside of the pocket you’re looking at. The cap should be overlapping the stem on the back of your pocketed pot holder. Remember that the caps themselves form one pocket, so refer to the picture below and start at the bottom arrow and go around the cap to the top arrow, don’t sew along the bottom edge of your mushroom cap.
After you’ve sewn the caps together place the stem on top of your other stem, right side facing up, bases lined up, so there will be a small gap between the cap and stem on the front, and sew those together. Trim all your edges down to .5mm or ¼ inch in preparation for binding the edges.
Step 7
Let’s finish those raw edges! Starting with the back of you pocketed pot holder facing up, place your binding on top, right side down, and fold-over the starting edge of your bias binding (this makes it look pretty at the end), and sew with a .5mm or ¼ inch seam allowance. When you get to the curved edge of your stem, ease the binding round the curve, as pictured above.
When you hit the corners, where the stem meets the cap, I allowed the binding to bunch a little and just sewed round the corner. It worked well and looks quite neat in the finished product!
At the centre top of your mushroom, stop sewing down the binding, and instead fold each edge of the binding into the centre, then fold that in half, and sew it down for around 8cm or 3 inches. To make the loop you simply fold the bias binding back on itself and open out the section after your stitching, and start sewing it down like before. I’ll include a picture of this step from the acorn pocketed pot holder because it’s a little clearer in showing how this works.
Continue all the way around the rest of your mushroom to where you began, overlapping your starting point by 1cm or ½ inch, and cut off any unnecessary bias binding.
Step 8
Your mushroom binding will now look like this, a mess, right? But trust me, it’s about to look so neat and cute! Trim down any seam edges that are more than .5cm or ¼ inch, and then pull the binding around to the other side of the mushroom.
It will now look like this from the back of the mushroom.
And will look like this from the front!
Now, just like we did with the bias binding on the straight edge of the stems and caps, fold in the raw edge of the binding, and then topstitch it down.
Ease around those corners where the stem meets the cap, because of that little bit of stretch in the bias binding these are much easier than you’d expect.
Make sure to topstitch right up onto the base of the hanging loop!
Now you have an adorable mushroom pot holder! These pocketed pot holders are so useful but they’re also so very cute! I have them hung up in different spots in my kitchen where they’re most useful, and it’s so good because you have protection on the front and backs of your fingers and thumb, but you can grab it with one hand, unlike a traditional oven mitt. I really hope you have a go at making this one, and the pumpkin and acorn ones, too! They also go through the wash really well and come out ready for use again and again! Keep an eye out for some Christmas themed ones in December!
FREE DOWNLOADABLE POCKETED MUSHROOM POTHOLDER TEMPLATE
