Make a Pot Holder with String Piecing Techniques

String piecing is a fun and easy quilting technique. And it's also a great way to use up your fabric scraps. So this pot holder here is a finished string piecing project that I made. So you can see that it's a way to put together lots of diagonal strips of fabric and build up different size blocks. So I'm going to start by showing you a couple of different methods for string piecing. And the first method is using a fabric backing to build up that set of strips. So right here, I've cut a square of muslin to the size that I want my block to be, and I'm going to be using it to actually have a foundation to stitch my strips on to. So I have a bunch of strips here of all different sizes that are just from my own stash. And I've kind of picked some of them that are all around one or two inches wide, but really you can use any width of strips that you want and just make sure that they are the right length to cover the section of the foundation that you're building onto. So the fun thing about string piecing is that it can really be as planned out or as improvisational as you want. I really like to take this improvisational approach where I mix up a bunch of different colors and scraps that I have that I wouldn't necessarily think go together but I like to put them together as I'm building it up. But you can also do something more planned where you start with a color scheme or want to alternate strips or any type of plan that you want to start with. So I've got this first strip laid down here. I'm kind of using a green and blue color scheme here but other than that, the strips are all random. They're just all different quilting cottons that I have. So I'm going to start from the middle and build my way outward toward the edges of the square. And I'm going to just place this first longer strip diagonally across the center of the square. And then I'm going to look for another piece here in my little scrap stash that I'm going to stitch onto the square at the same time. So I have my first strip laid right side up against the foundation square. So I've got this striped one that I think will look nice next to it. So you can kind of audition them as you go and make sure that they're long enough to span this diagonal length here. And so I'm going to, I think this one looks good. It's going to cover that length. And it's also a good contrast to this one next to it. So I'm going to position this one right side down over the first strip and just make sure that it's, the length is lined up with the right spot on the foundation square. And if you want, you can pin. I don't do too much pinning but I'll just add a pin just to secure them. Since it's all straight lines, you don't need a ton of pins. So I'll bring it over to my machine here. And I'm just going to use a quarter inch seam allowance like you would for any quilting project. See here. And I'll just strip, stitch those two strips together with right sides all the way through all the layers. So I'm going through the foundation square as well. So I have those two stitched down and I'll be pressing as I go so that I can have a nice flat surface to keep stitching the strips on to. So I'll press those two strips away from each other, and move on to the next strip. So I like to kind of build outward from the middle. So now I'm going to be looking at a strip to add to this edge here. And the fun thing about string piecing too, is that you can use up some of your really small scraps that you wouldn't really be able to use for a lot of other projects. So I have this little one here and I can tell that it's long enough that when I put it along this edge, it'll cover the foundation. So I'll line that up. And do the same thing with right sides together. That just misaligns slightly. So the, the main thing to keep in mind again is just making sure that that square is going to be covered. So make sure that your edges, you can't see the foundation square underneath them at the bottoms and the tops of your strips. So you can see how quickly you can build up this square, so I'll press again. And come to the other edge, again working out toward the ends. So I think I want kind of a lighter value here now. And I'll match that up. And actually, I think I won't use this one because as you can see, there's just a little tiny tail left of the square. So you don't want to do anything really tiny at the edges because it will get eaten up by the seam allowance if you're using a quarter inch seam allowance. So you kind of want, as you can see on this little potholder that I made, you can see that I use kind of thicker ones here at the middle to create that diamond effect. So you don't want that getting lost there. So I think I'll do a skinnier strip so that I can add one more to the end. So we're almost done. And if you have any extra long pieces like this, you can trim them away as you go just to make it easier to maneuver under the sewing machine. So now I just have these two little points here at the end. Gonna add this little tiny scrap that I have to this side. And I'm using a whole, a whole different collection of scraps. So every fabric is different. If you wanted to do something more cohesive like this potholder, then I only use three different fabrics for this. And I just alternated them in the same order. But you could also, you can also just mix it up entirely and use a different one for every section. So I have this little tiny, tiny scrap here and I can tell that it'll fit over the end of that square. And I'll press this last strip open. So now I can tell that my, my entire foundation square there is covered up so I'm ready to trim it. So this is where you want to use your rotary cutter. That's the easiest tool to make nice straight lines. So I'm going to line up my ruler with the edge of the foundation strip. And always keep your hand on the ruler as you're cutting, because then you know that the rotary cutter blade won't hit it. So I'm just going to cut away the extra from each of these sides. These scraps are probably too little that I have leftover to make another square but sometimes you end up with scraps from one square that are long enough to use on another string piecing square. So now I have the square all trimmed up. And as you can see, I've covered up my foundation and have a block to to work with for whatever project I'd want to make. So you can keep making these and form them into an entire quilt if you want, or you can just make four like this and make them into a potholder. You could use them as an applicant on another project. They're really fun and quick to make. And also again, really nice way to use up all those little skinny scraps that you have. So the next method that I'll show you is actually using paper instead of fabric as a foundation. So fabric of course adds just this little extra layer of bulk. So if you don't want that, if you don't want that extra layer of muslin underneath your string piece block then you can actually use paper to stitch the fabric strips to instead. So I like to just use plain old copy paper because it's nice and thin. It's easy to rip off after, after you've stitched. So I just have printer paper here and that I've cut kind of a, almost an equilateral triangle that I'm going to use as my foundation. So you don't just have to make squares. You can make any kind of angular shape. You can do this technique on it. So this time I'm going to make a triangle. So you can see that I've gotten started again just by laying out these strips and stitching them in the same method that I use to do the square, except this time we're kind of going from bigger to smaller. I started in the middle. So I'm going to just finish this one up and show you how that can get trimmed away and we'll be able to remove the paper entirely. So for this, I actually like to use a very small stitch length. That kind of perforates the paper really well. So that makes it even easier to tear it off. So I've got it down to about a 1.6 millimeter stitch length instead of the regular two or 2.5 that you would use. So I'll stitch this last strip onto the bottom of my triangle And same thing, I'll be pressing it away from the one that I laid it against. And another thing that you can do if you're using the paper foundation and you're a little bit nervous about those strips slipping around, you can use a glue stick. When you do your very first strip, you can actually glue it down to the paper. And that kind of gives you a nice stable surface since you don't necessarily want to pin through it since that'll make a permanent hole that could rip. So let's see, I'm going to finish up my triangle here. And again, I don't want to use the skinniest strip ever there at the top because it'll get lost. So let's add a smaller strip first. I'll press it away from the one before it. And then I have one last section to cover up and I have a nice blue piece here that's thick enough to cover at the point. If you're doing a lot of string piecing, it's really nice to have an ironing station set up right next to your machine. So you can see how much pressing and stitching I'm doing one right after the other. So it's kind of annoying to have to get up and walk all the way over to the iron. So if you have a little mini iron and a mini pressing station to set up next to you, that's a great time-saver. So I have my triangle all covered up now, so I'm going to do the same process to get it trimmed up. Gonna turn it to the wrong side and use my rotary cutter. Again, you can see how this would be hard to do with regular scissors to get that nice straight edge along your foundation. And when you're rotary cutting, you always want to cut away from yourself. So move the fabric instead of moving your arms. Always switch the fabric to the position that will keep you cutting away from yourself. Because you have the most control that way. And it's also the safest. Missed a little stitch right there. Okay. So now I have this triangle that's all stitched to the foundation. And I still have the paper on the back. So you can keep the paper on the back as long as you want to until you're ready to piece it to something else, but it's really easy to tear away. You can see it just, along those little skinny stitches that I've done. It's kind of tears away, just like a perforator edge. So you would just remove all of that paper from the back, if you're ready to stitch it to another square. I have another square, or another triangle actually, triangle rather, that I've done the same size. So it's kind of fun as you build up more and more triangles to place them together. And you could make a hexagon out of six of them, and end up with a nice big quilt block to put on something. It could be the central motif of a, of another project, and use up all your scraps in the process. So I'll tell you a little bit about this pot holder that I made and how I use the pieced, string pieced squares from this one. So I just did little string piece squares. So I use little tiny scraps for this. So they're all, all of them were just three inches to begin with. And I did four of them, really with similar pattern. And like I said, alternating these three fabrics and then I just piece them together just like you would a four patch block. And then I layered it over this kind of heat resistant batting that has kind of a layer of, I think they also call it metalized fleece. And that's really nice for potholders because it insulates. So you have a little extra protection if you're using it on the stove. So I layered that over the top of a piece of the heat resistant batting. And then I layered a piece of fabric that matched the strips on the back and I quilted those together. So there's a lot of different options for quilting when you're doing string piecing. On this particular project, I did just a stitching in the ditch. So I just followed the lines of every single one of these strips, which can get a little tedious if you had a bigger project. So you could do free motion, or you could just choose to outline the, the each little square. But so there's lots of, lots of fun options for that. Since this is such a small project, quilting in the ditch is kind of fun and it gives it a good, a cool look on the back. And then after I got it all quilted and trimmed away, then I just added a regular quilt binding like you would to a larger quilt and a loop to hang it up. So you could, you could do a bigger pot holder. You could do a makeup bag. There's a lot of fun ways to use up all of the blocks and triangles that you make from string piecing.