Oven hand mitts

I found an awesome tutorial on Pinterest for Oven Mitts and thought I'd give it a try! There was a bit of a learning curve, but they came out pretty nice. Not good enough to give to others (until I get more practice), but good enough for me.

You can find the detailed tutorial and pattern here:
http://www.theidearoom.net/2009/10/oven-hand-mitt-tutorial.html

 Can you tell which one is the first one I made and which is the second?

How about now?

The first one (and clearly worst one) was in the left in both photos. As you can see, the fabric puckered quite a bit on the top side (the part where your hand goes) and I missed the bias tape a few times on the bottom side (the side that touches the pan).

I learned a few things that helped me do a little better job the second time around.
1. I cut the cotton batting and the Insulbrite slightly smaller than the fabric so that there wouldn't be so much bulk to sew the bias tape over. With the first one, I cut some of the bulk off, but the second time I was a little more successful with sewing close to the edge.
2. Instead of cutting 4 half ovals per potholder, I cut 2 pieces on the fold as was suggested in the comments on her blog.
3. I used the "proper" way to sew bias tape as demostrated here.
4. Instead of pinning the bias tape all the way through all that fabric when sewing, I just pinned it to the outer most layer. This made it MUCH easier to pin.
5. I overlapped the open end of the bias tape a little more than the first time before sewing.

Here is a two more pics of the first one:

And a couple more of the second one. You'll have to excuse the dirtiness, I used it prior to taking the photos.

And a photo of the first one "in use."

Note that I used only 1 layer of Insulbrite and 1 layer of cotton batting to make it easier on me. I do feel some heat, especially at higher temperatures, but definitely not something that will burn me. If I make these for others, I might try to add another layer of cotton batting. The original blog suggests 2 layers of Insulbrite and 1 of cotton batting.

Happy Crafting!