Pot holders from jeans pockets - a tutorial

I saw one of these at a friend's house a few weeks ago, and loved the idea of them! Having recently bought some jeans from the charity shop for 50c a pair, I thought I'd have a go at making my own pot holders!

Here's how:

First gather your materials. You will need 2 back jeans pockets, some fleece for the batting (padding) on the inside, pretty material for the other side of the holders and contrasting material for the binding round the edges.

Cut around the back jeans pockets leaving as much space as you can. 

Then neaten up the edges. Mine were 20 x 18cm (8 x 7").  Then cut pieces the same size from the pretty fabric and your fleece. 

Also cut strips from the contrasting fabric, 6cm (2.5") wide for the binding around the edge.  You will need strips that total in length, the distance all the way around your holders, plus a little extra to spare for the hook.

(I needed about 1 metre (39.5") for each pot holder.

Pin together the pretty fabric and the fleece.

Then stitch together. 

 I decided to try out another bit of quilting (I'm very much a beginner at this).  I just ran wiggly lines of stitching down the fabric.  It's quite fun not having to keep a straight line for a change - and just wiggle woggling all over the place!

With my fabric being stripy, wiggly lines may not have been the best choice!  I tried the wiggles both ways - what do you think?

Then pin and stitch together your fleece parts to your pocket parts, so you have the pockets and the pretty fabric facing outwards.:

Now to the binding.  Take your strips of fabric and stitch them together to make 2 long pieces - one for each pot holder:

Then using your iron, press each strip in half lengthways. Then open it up and press the edges in again to touch the center crease:

Then finally fold the whole strip in half again so all the raw edges are completely hidden and press again:

And now you have your two strips of binding ready to attach to the pot holders. Trim around the edges of your pockets to neaten up the edges and you're ready to go!

Now here is where I admit I'm not very good at binding. 

If you want a nice clear set of instructions for perfection - and handstitching to finish off - here's a good one. I would recommend you take a look at how it should be done properly!!

Me - I opened up my binding and pinned one side all around, folding the ends under to hide the raw edges, and trimming the end to make a loop for the hanger which I pinned to the reverse side.  I stitched all around, folded the binding over, and machine stitched it down on the other side.  It's not perfect - but practical !  The raw edges are hidden and the edges of my pot holders are bound!

Apologies to those perfectionists out there. One day with practice I might get the hang of binding - but for now this will have to do!

And there you have it - two pot holders made from jeans pockets and scraps!

Hang them up and they're ready to use!

A nice upcycle - and use of scraps!

For the downloadable PDF version of this tutorial, click here.

If you enjoyed this tutorial - there over 100 more free sewing tutorials for all levels of sewing ability to be found here on my tutorials page!