Potholders in progress

This is probably overly complicated. But I’m compelled to give it a try. At least I decided to try it first on a small object instead of an almost twin-size quilt. And the result will make a useful potholder.

The idea is to create a facing – meaning display the binding on the back, letting the patchwork be the size that it is on the front. I don’t want a whipped or stitched edge like a quilt would normally have. I decided to try a joining stitch on the edge. A few years ago, during the pandemic when everything was weird, I became obsessed with joining stitches and made a sampler and then a fabric book with pages joined that way. I like the joining stitch concept because it doesn’t use up any material besides the already anticipated seam allowance. It allows each layer of the quilt sandwich to take up its own space. In other words, I don’t have to plan ahead to leave enough material to roll over the edge.

So here’s how the front of the potholder looks:

And here’s how the back looks with the facing:

Neither fabric wraps around the edge. Does it qualify as a binding? The thread of the joining stitch defines the edge. It didn’t take that long to do. I hope it will be neater on the next potholder. You can see the stitches are sometimes visible on the outer edge of the back above, and sometimes they disappear.

By the way, this is a stitch called Palestrina.

What could go wrong? Bits of the internals could work their way out between the stitches. It’s airier than a seam would be. I’m not sure that’s a huge problem. The thread could become abraded there on the edge more than a fabric binding would be. Causing the quilt to lose integrity. I’ve seen bindings that are falling apart and need to be replaced. Maybe a line of quilting close to the edge could help keep the sandwich together over time and wear.

In any case, I’m looking forward to the near future, not the distant future. I’ll stitch down the facing, do the quilting, and then make the second potholder. Then, if I’m happy with how those turned out, I will do the whole quilt this way (she says confidently).

I woke up this morning full of the energy of spring. It was snowing. But there are tulips from the grocery store in the kitchen.