Could you please describe this "heat resistant fabric"? I am not sure what that is.

I know that Joann's sells a type of heat resistant batting called Insul Bright. It is in the interfacing section of the store. If that is what you have, see this previous thread from the forum.href>

maryliz, Yes, Insul Bright is exactly what I bought at Joann's. I should have said batting and not fabric--sorry. It says it can be used to make potholders but doesn't say how many layers to use. I was just wondering if anyone here has used it and how many layers they used.

Thank you!!

My potholders are utititarian like most everything else I make. I put 3 or 4 layers of Warm and Natural inside and make them oversized to protect the hands. No one has ever gotten burned with my generous sized potholders. I often use scraps and stitch them together and do some simple machine quilting, enough to hold them together. These are not the Country store variety of potholders. Simple and easy, like everything else I want to do in this life.
June in Cincinnati

My Insul~Bright came with instructions. For an oven mitt, you are to use one layer of the Insul~Bright, but also add one layer of cotton batting (such as Warm & Natural) on the inside of the oven mitt, to protect your hand from the heat. Of course, you need a fabric for the outside and one for the lining. Because it's an oven mitt, you have to make two halves. You'd have to bind the cuff.

For a hot pad, you'd want a layer of cotton batting on the side that would be on the table. The side that takes the heat of the pot should be the Insul~Bright.

For a potholder, you would have to designate a "hand" side and a "pot" side to your potholder. Maybe a print on the hand side and a solid on the pot side, which would be more likely to get a stain, anyway.

For any object used around heat and open flame, I'd use 100% cotton wherever possible. So that means the fabrics you use should be 100% cotton. I do not think it is important to use cotton thread. Poly should be fine. It is less than 1% of the finished article.

The reason cotton is supposed to be so great is because it takes longer to catch fire. I have never actually set a potholder on fire, but it doesn't hurt to be a little more careful.

I have only made one potholder to date. It was an orphaned quilt block. I layered it with two layers of Warm & Natural batting and a fabric backing, then machine quilted, then used a double layer binding. I used a zigzag to tack down the fold of the binding, instead of hand finishing.

I don't think you'd want to try to "birth" a potholder, since it would be very thick. You'd have to use binding. Time to learn how to do that, if you have never done it before. Since it's just a potholder, it wouldn't be such a huge chore.

Maryliz, I can't get your link to work. Was there a pic of the stuff there? I bought some pot holder batting at the quilt store last year but never have used it. It has silver threads in it. Is the heat resistant fabric to be used on the outside or inside of the potholder?

I usually put a piece of an old towel inside my potholders. It would depend on the thickness of the towel, but this seems to be enough of a filler to protect my hand.

Trudymom,

I don't have any pictures, but here's a hot mitt pattern.

I only use one piece per hot pad or hot mitt.

Hope this helps.

doris=^.^=

Here is a link that might be useful: Hot Mitts

Wow, that's a great link. I saved it although I don't have a machine that can do that.

Marti,
The machine my wonderful DH recently got me does the embroidery. I love it so much, and him too!!

I'm still learning though, this thing does so much, I may never learn it all.LOL

doris=^.^=

I make potholders from my practice sqs. It is a good way to use them and are usualy interesting. I have an embroidery machine and the practice designs have been nice.
I have never used insul-bright batting but I would think if used as the middle layer between 2 other regular batts that it wouldn't matter which side you used and would be a good wt. as I normally use 3 layers of Hobbs cotton batt.
Jayne

I have learned so much for all of you. I think I will buy some cotton batting also. Is there a difference between "Hobbs" and "Warm and Natural?"

Anyone else??

Thank you!!

Doris,
what a great website! I am inspired to try some of those!
great ideas here.
sue

Trudymom,
I prefer warm and natural. I think that it is a nice batting that is decently thick so it doesn't fall apart when you pick it up. Also, some Hobb's is 80% cotton 20% polyester, which you definitely wouldn't want the polyester for this project.

I have never been disappointed with warm and natural, but I have with other batts.

JoAnn's sells it on the bolt and it is 90 inches wide. I think it is normally 11 bucks a yard. Recently, they had it on 50% off and it was 5 bucks a yard which is awesome! You can also use a 40% off coupon on it. Walmart also sells it in a 40 inch width for about 4 bucks a yard.

Hope this helps,
Jen

Sorry, Jen, I made a mistake when I embedded that link. Here is the correct page.href>

I also spoke with my husband last night about Insul~Bright. He is a mechanical engineer. He taught me about something called "heat transfer." That is the study of how heat moves around through different media, including hot pans, hot pads, tables, pot holders, hands... you get the picture.

I asked if I was correct in one thing. That being, you don't want a layer of regular batting between the hot object and the Insul~Bright. From what he taught me, the batting would keep the Insul~Bright from reflecting the heat back toward the hot object. Heat would build up inside the layers of the pot holder, hot pad, etc.

So that means you don't want to sandwich the Insul~Bright between two layers of batting. You want to have a "heat" side and a "hand" side. Or "table" side.

Of course, I have not confirmed this with an actual experiment, but I'm pretty sure it would go that way.

One thing about quilted potholders is when they're worn out, just toss. They're a great way to use up those practice blocks.

Kay

I bought a book this summer on quilted potholders, patterns and how to. I couldn't find the special quilt batting so I bought a teflon ironing board cover and will put that inside with the batting. Hope to get started soon as I'd like to share them for the holidays. I'm new at quilting and I thought this would be a fun way to get started using the designs as practice blocks!

tish