Patchwork Sailboat Quilt Block Hot Pad | Week 23 of 52 Weeks of Hot Pads

Welcome to the 23rd week post of the 52 weeks of hot pads / quilted pot holders. This week we’re making sailboat quilt block.

Here is the list of past week’s posts in this 52 Weeks of Hot Pads Challenge:

I thought it would be a great challenge for me to do a pot holder a.k.a hot pads every single week of 2019. (but I am currently falling way behind, maybe I’ll catch up but if not, it will just be 52 weeks but not in a single year)

I am planning on having it displayed in my kitchen. They make great decor, don’t they?

While I am at it, I am going to be sharing with you a simple tutorial on the process.

You can join in the challenge and make the same hot pads I make every week with the same design or any of your own choice.

I am loving my wall filling up with lots of colours! Making these and hanging them has been a lot of fun.

Sailboat Quilt Block

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I am at my mom’s this week – we are currently on movement control order due to the Covid19 and I have been stuck here for already 4 weeks!. Not an issue, but I do miss my home… so this post will lack my usual favourite items to sew with and the view will be a little different as I sew from my Pfaff machine.

This quilted hot pad was inspired by my mum’s old work in progress which is the sailboat quilt blocks.

Here is my mum’s collection of the blocks so far:

Things I love that make this 52 weeks of Hot Pad project a lot more fun:

This ruler set – perfect size all of them
This rotating mat – can’t imagine one without this these days.
This Spray Baste – have always been a fan of spray baste, for small quilted projects – a must! although in most of these hot pads I also use pins as they are more than just a single batting in between.
This Batting – the perfect one for hot pads. Or in this hot pad, I am using two layers of cotton batting + aluminium insulation sheet in the middle (I love the final crisp sturdy and heat reflect of the final hot pad with this combo)
My Fabric Scraps!! – read more how I sort my scraps HERE>
Portable quilting design board. I love using the portable design board as it makes it easy to transfer from the cutting table to the side of the sewing machine. You can purchase a portable quilting design board here.

Things I am substituting this time:

Since I am at my mum’s, I don’t have the usual things I sew with.

I am using a thick puffy polyester batting my mum had bought for her quilt before I bought her the bamboo batting. I recommend new quilters to use thin batting to make quilting much easier (which is why I asked my mum to use the bamboo batting instead of the thick polyester one). But I decided to use it for this project because I wanted to try it out and since this was a small project, it was a great experiment indeed.
I don’t have any Spray Baste either, so I am basting with the curve basting pins.
I did have some fabrics scraps left over at my mum’s place, so I am using those.

How to make sailboat quilt block

I have simplified the process to make the sailboat quilt block with the following illustration. The block is 8.5″ unfinished.

Once I have pieced the block, I simply baste it.

As I mentioned above, I am using a thick polyester batting. I wanted to see how different it is to work with this batting, surely indeed it was definitely harder to free motion quilt with!

I always, always recommend people to practice their skills on little projects like these. They don’t go to waste and you’ll get satisfaction to continue on practicing or you’ll learn a few things.

This time I learned that it was harder to control the sandwich with the thick polyester batting and it causes distortion on the quilt top. Polyester have also very little friction with the quilt top and backing making basting with pins not efficient if I only used the pins sparsely.

Since the quilt sandwich became thick, I also adjusted the presser foot pressure.

I even practiced straight line quilting without my rulers using the free motion quilting foot. Well, It was not perfectly straight but I guess it’s okay.

The sail on the boat was left unquilted and it puffed out really nice with the thick batting.

I trimmed the quilted block realizing that some of the patches were a little crooked after it was all quilted. O well…it was good to try.