Turn Your ClimateGard Bag into Upcycled Quilted Oven Mitts
By Lynsey Ruml
Our organic cotton ClimateGard packaging is inspiring us to sew-up a storm over here at Johnny Appleseed Organic! Lately, we’re on an oven mitt-making mission using one of our favorite patterns.
If you’re a sewist with an Instagram account, chances are you’ve seen this mitt around already. If you haven’t, meet the Bombazine oven mitt — a free, downloadable pattern over at the fabulous Australian sewing website Bombazine. The Bombazine mitt is so popular because it’s compact enough to stay out of the way while cooking, but still fits an average adult-size hand. With our many, in-house vegan chefs, these oven mitts will surely be put to good use!
We sourced organic vegan versions of the suggested pattern materials for our batting and lining. For the mitt exterior, we used ClimateGard packaging, organic fabric from our scrap bin and even the small leftover squares from our harvest basket tutorial! We pieced our scraps using a quilt-as-you-go technique and quilted our packaging with a surprisingly easy sunray design.
Follow along below to add these fun details to your bombazine mitt!
Practice Makes Perfect
STEP 1 — If you are new to quilting, trace your mitt on a piece of paper first and practice drawing your design. Start by drawing a dot where you’d like your rays to originate from. They can originate from either side. Make sure this dot is within ¼ of an inch from the outer edge to ensure it will later be excluded in the seam allowance. Use your ruler to make random diagonal lines of various angles (from your dot) radiating outward, as shown below.
STEP 2 — After you practice your design on paper, try quilting your outer mitt piece. Using a washable chalk pencil, lightly make the same marks on your mitt that you did on your paper practice version. Sew over your marks, starting from the dot and moving outward. Don’t worry about your lines meeting perfectly, as your dot is within the seam line.
For your reassurance, take a look into the future. The dot is ‘cut-off’ in the seam allowance when you complete your mitt. See, we told you not to worry!
Diagonal ‘Quilt As You Go’
STEP 1 — Cut out your batting or recycled wool piece from the Bombazine Mitt tutorial as directed.
STEP 2 — Trim your fabric scraps in various strips measuring 2-5 inches tall. Face the right (printed) sides of one strip with the right side of one of the squares left from our harvest basket tutorial. Sew together. Press open seams.
STEP 3 — Place right side of fabric strip onto mitt batting and sew down, using a ¼ inch seam allowance along edge.
STEP 4 — Flip over strip of fabric and press. Quilt as shown, using any pattern desired. We like using straight or organic-looking wavy lines for this pattern.
STEP 5 — Place another strip over the last strip, right sides together. Sew down using a ¼ inch seam allowance, making sure to cover one (long) edge from the previous sewn strip.
STEP 6 — Repeat step 4, continuing to repeat step 4 and 5 until the entire piece of batting is covered.
STEP 7 — Trim around batting.
We hope you enjoy these quick tutorials and will use them for your future quilting projects! Remember, if you ever get ‘stuck’ on any of our tutorials, send us an Instagram DM — we’re always happy to help!
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Cutting-edge microbiology
No kill formula
Superior plant nutrition derived from the most ethical, sustainable sources available.
Produces the same results as conventional fertilizers without the negative environmental impacts.
Each ClimateGard pellet is infused with micronutrients, silicon, humic acid and a high-performance blend of living bacteria and fungi.
Delivered in an environmentally friendly organic cotton bag with a compostable inner liner.
Will continue to enrich your soil long after application.
$39.95 for 7.5 pound bag | $69.95 for 15 pound bag.