Momento: Log Cabin Potholder

The singer memento makes cutting fabric shapes, quick, easy and precise. So you don't have to get out your ruler and rotary cutter to cut out these little shapes for piecing together a project. I'm using it to make a log cabin potholder like this one which finishes at about seven inches square. And my pieces are all cut at 1.5 inches wide. So I have a 1.5 inch square in the center, another 1.5 inch square and then a 1.5 by 2.5, another 2.5, a 3.5 3.5 4.5 4.5 5.5 5.5 6.5 6.5. And then we end with a 1.5 by 7.5 inch rectangle. So for this project, you'll need some fabric a little bit of batting. So I use a layer of cotton batting and a layer of insulated batting such as insole bright and then some fabric for the backing and for the binding as well. So it is super easy to get your shapes that you need um for your piecing project. And for this um log cabin pot holder, it's really easy to get those in the software that we use with the singer Memento. So you can get the dimensions of your pieces. Exactly. Right. So in the my sot software, we have crafting down here so you can create something new by selecting your cutting mat size. And it's really easy with the squares and the rectangles that we're working with here, we can go over to basic shape and you have a ton of preloaded basic shapes that you can choose from and play with. And of course, you can input other designs um to cut out, but we are just using squares. So you can edit the size and the shape by going up here to edit and with the proportions locked, you can change the size of the square. So you can make it bigger smaller. So then you can toggle this off and change up one of the dimensions to create a rectangle. So you can input your exact dimensions for whatever size of squares and rectangles you need for this project. So I actually have my pieces already set and you can save all of the designs you create. So we're gonna open this up. So I'm cutting out a couple of my rectangles and I'm actually cutting up my backing uh using this software as well because it's fast and easy. So I'm cutting out my backing, um rectangle a couple of inches larger than the size that it's going to finish at. So I'm cutting out a nine inch square for my backing. So before we send this design over to our machine to cut out, we need to prep our fabric and get our fabric onto our mat. So here's our cutting mat and we just want to align the corner of our fabric with the upper left corner of the mat and align it along that upper edge and down the side. And we're just going to kind of smooth it into place. So it's adhered to this tacky mat. So we're going to load this mat into the machine by sliding that up next to the pinch wheels and then hit load mat. So with our mat and our fabric ready, we're going to go back to our software to send the design over. So to send my shapes over to the machine to be cut, we're going to come up here to output, make sure your machine is selected, hit, send to machine, select your mat size and then you'll want to select what material you're cutting. So we're cutting fabric and then you have some choices of different weights of fabric so that it knows uh what pressure to use with the rotary blade to cut out. So we're doing quilting cotton. And then in this screen, you have some options for how to arrange your pieces on the mat, uh are on the screen for cutting, so you can deselect this, this is move to top. So it, if your design was, you know, somewhere in the center, it'll move it up to the corner to preserve fabric. And you can also rearrange to reduce waste, which I really appreciate. I like that. So it'll rearrange your shapes so that they are next to each other and it'll just be the most efficient way to cut out your pieces. So I'm going to cut them out like that. So hit next. And then based on what fabric I chose it inputs some force and speed settings. And because I did a test cut on my fabric, I know I need to adjust this just a little bit and I'm actually going to increase the speed as well. So you can see how quick this cuts and then we're going to hit, continue. So the design is sent over to the machine and we are ready to cut. So on the machine screen, it says the design has been received. So we're just going to hit, start cutting. So the machine is going to cut exactly the size of uh the the dimensions that we input. So everything is going to be perfectly precise, no matter how precise you, you think you are with the ruler and the rotary cutter, sometimes errors happen in cutting errors, sometimes happen in sewing. So with this machine, you eliminate any chance for errors in cutting. So it's going to be perfectly precise. So with it finished, we're going to hit close and then eject map. So we can take a look at our cuts. And I like to just peel off the excess fabric and you can reveal your fabric shapes. So you can imagine how nice this would be if you were making an entire quilt out of log cabin blocks, and you could cut all of your fabric pieces that you need out of one fabric all at once. So there we have a couple of our rectangles, we have our backing and then once you cut out all of the rest of your, your square and rectangle shapes out of your fabrics, you can do it all just the same way with the memento so that they are all perfectly precise. And then we can switch over to the sewing machine and stitch up our potholder. So once you have all of your fabric pieces cut out, we can start assembling this and make our little quilt sandwich. So we have our backing and we have our uh insulated batting cut to nine inches square as well. And then our cotton batting square all layered together and we're doing a quilt as you go log cabin pot holder. So we're going to start by taking our center square and you want to place it in the center. You don't have to get super fussy about it because we cut these wider or larger than, um, then the size that it's going to finish at, we have a little bit of wiggle room here for squaring it up when it's finished. So just sort of eyeball it in the center right side up and then take your other 1.5 inch square and we place it right sides together and we're going to stitch one of these sides using a quarter inch seam allowance. And I like to start a quarter inch from this edge and then end a quarter inch from this edge. And that just makes the quilting lines on the wrong side line up really nicely. So we're going to go under the foot and stitch. I went a little bit further than my quarter inch. That is ok. So we're going to press that open so you can finger press or you can hit it a little bit with the iron and then we're going to take the next size and you'll notice if you ever get confused with what size of rectangle goes where there's only one size of rectangle that's going to, to fit in this space. So we're going to place that right sides together. So we're going to stitch one of these sides again with our quarter inch seam. So open that up, give that a quick press. So all of our pieces are going to, they're going to kind of go in a in a swirl here and we want to encase this center square first. So here's my next fabric again, this is my 2.5 inch, which fits perfectly right there. And then we move up to our next size, up to encase that center square and we're going to keep moving around that swirl to create our block for our potholder press that open and then our next size fits perfectly right here. So we're going to keep aligning our fabric pieces and we have are sort of l shapes that keep expanding out. All right, our block is all completed and with quilt as you go, as you're stitching the the pieces together, you get these nice quilting lines on the wrong side and my thread kind of matches my fabric pretty well, but I can see how my lines match up with the sort of straight lines. And then we have that sort of swirl pattern of the log cabin. So we need to square this up and trim off that excess. So we're just going to take a ruler and rotary cutter and align that and trim off that excess. So we're gonna square this up all the way around. All right. So once we get a nice even square, the last step is to finish our block with some binding. So I cut my binding at 1.5 inches wide. So that's going to give me a 38 inch finished binding So I have my binding strip already made. So I have my long edges folded to the center and then folded in half. And I have my, my end cut at an angle and that raw edge pressed in. So that when we come and the end lapse over the beginning, we get a nice angled um overlap. So we're going to align all of our raw edges and you can clip or pin this binding. I'm going to just use a couple of clips. So we're going to stitch right in that first fold line. So it's going to be right around 3/8 inch seam allowance. So we're going to stitch this around and then as we come to our corner, just like mitering anything mitering any corners for a quilt or anything, we're going to stop our seam allowance distance away from the next edge. We're going to push that binding up out of 45 so that the edge of my pot holder and the edge of the binding is all one line and then fold it back down. And then we're going to start stitching again right at the edge right at that fold. And that's going to give us a nice crisp mitered corner. So we're going to do the same thing all the way around to all of our corners. So as we approach the spot where our binding began, we're going to overlap the binding end overlap, overlap by a few inches making sure we go far enough. I'm going to trim this excess away and you wanna make sure you have enough binding to go all the way around. Um and some extra for mitering your corners. So this was seven inches, seven inches on each side. So seven times four plus maybe 10 inches or so, just to make sure you have enough to go all the way around. So now we're going to wrap this binding around the, the edges and the corners and it makes such a nice perfect miter. So we're going to wrap this around to the wrong side and you just want to make sure that when this wraps around to the wrong side, that this fold covers up that stitching line because we're going to stitch from the right side and we're going to stitch on the binding. So we're going to stitch just on the binding to catch that fold on the wrong side. So we want to tuck our corners into miters. So with that wrapped around to the back, we're going to stitch from the right side just on the binding to catch that fold on the wrong side. And at the corners, you want to make sure you stop with the needle down in the corner, it's a pivot around to stitch the next edge and then we'll back stitch at the end and then everything is bound and we've caught that fold on the wrong side. So your pot holder is finished and we've got our quilting lines on the back. So your pot holder then is ready to be used or ready to be given as a gift. So just imagine if you were making these to give away to friends and family, you could cut all of your pieces out of each fabric all at once. So what once was be a daunting task to cut all of these pieces? Suddenly with the singer Memento becomes achievable and fun. There are so many ways the singer Memento can help elevate your sewing, quilting and crafting projects. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for watching.