Sew It - Pattern-less Oven Mitts Tutorial

My oven mitts have been on their last legs for a while now, so I decided I wanted to make my own new ones instead of buying some. Mostly because I had some gorgeous elephant fabric from Pink Scissors Fabric.

I'm sure I've got a pattern for mitts like these on my Pinterest wall somewhere, but I was feeling lazy and it seemed like a simple thing to do without a pattern. It was!

I used my original mitts as my guide, lay them on my fabric and used a ruler to draw the straight lines, adding a generous seam allowance. I followed the curve of the mitts and my guide was done. 

From that piece, I cut an identical piece of fabric, a piece of Insul-Bright heat proof lining, a piece of lightweight interlining, and a piece of 2oz batting. These layers would make up the long length of the mitts.

I then used the guide piece again to create the end pocket pieces, working out how deep I wanted them to be (and as my partner has pretty big man hands, I want them to be large). I need 2 fabric pieces and a 2oz batting piece for each end. 

These are the end pocket pieces.

Assembling each pocket piece one at a time, with right sides facing out I sandwiched the batting between the two fabric pieces, and pinned round the edges, before adding a strip of bias binding to the straight edge. 

With the long main piece, I assembled these in the following order - fabric : insulated lining : interfacing : batting : fabric - like this - 

I then whizzed round the edges of all 3 pieces in navy cotton thread on the sewing machine, and then added stripes of stitching approximately 2" apart to secure the layers in place on all 3 layers. 

I switched to white cotton and secured the binding on the pocket pieces, and then trimmed all the edges to 2-3mm from the stitch line.

Next, I pinned the binding open to the side of the main piece with the insulated lining at the top. This will be the part that comes into contact with hot dishes, so the pocket pieces go on the other side. 

Once this was stitched, I turned it over, laid the pocket pieces in place, and pinned the binding over the top edge. 

This proved very fiddly. Bias binding is a skill I am still learning, which is evident if you look closely! 

I stitched it in place, but I didn't do a great job. I decided to go round the inside of the binding with a zigzag stitch to secure the joins. 

All finished, and aside from not being perfect, they turned out very cute!