How to sew your own kitchen potholder

Protect your surfaces with this stylish set of colourful kitchen potholders. Stitched up in your favourite colours, they'll look perfect in your kitchen.

To make these kitchen potholders you will need:

• 60cm square navy cotton fabric
• 30cm thermal batting or fleece
• Four patterned fabric fat quarters
• 25mm wide bias tape maker
• Bondaweb
• Matching sewing thread
• Scissors
• Sewing machine
• Hand-sewing needle

Time to make: 5 hours

Stockists: Timeless Treasures Sketch quilting fabric in Sapphire, £13.99 per m; cotton bias binding, 19p per m; Clover bias tape maker, £11.99; all minervacrafts.com. Voyage Fabrics in Jambi Mandarin, Kerala Delft, Kew Mandarin, Bomeo Mandarin and Porto Mandarin, £3.25 per fat quarter, all Fabric HQ (fabrichq.co.uk).

How to make your own kitchen potholders:

1. Cut eight 15cm squares from the navy fabric and four from the thermal batting.
2. Print out the templates and enlarge to fit the squares of fabric. Fuse the Bondaweb to the wrong side of the patterned fabric pieces. Using our graphic as a guide, copy the cherry, knife and fork, vegetable and mug motifs onto the paper backings fused to the different fabrics and cut out.
3. Peel away the paper backing from the appliqué pieces and fuse to four of the navy squares. Using a small zigzag or blanket stitch, sew around the edges of the appliqués to secure in place.
4. Sandwich a piece of thermal batting in between an appliquéd square and a plain navy square for the back. Pin the layers together.
5. To make the matching binding, cut two 5cm x 40cm strips from each patterned fabric. Join the matching strips at the short ends with a 1cm seam allowance and press the seams open. Run the strips through the bias tape maker and press. Fold the binding in half lengthways and press again.
6. Slip the binding around the raw edges of the potholders and pin in place. Stitch all the way around the edge as close to the binding edge as possible. When you have done this, keep stitching the remaining length of binding and tie off the loose threads. Tuck the extra length under the pot holder to create a hanging loop, and topstitch to secure in place.