make his manly

My wonderful husband had a birthday this past weekend. I'll not gush on (again) here about how great he is, but take it from me, he is. He likes to cook on weekends, sometimes experimenting with new recipes, and sometimes making old favorites. Oh, and he loves wine. Drinking it, reading about it, shopping for it...

So a couple of months ago he asked our youngest daughter to make him a "manly" oven mitt for his birthday. Apparently the oven mitts in residence here have scalloped or ruffled edges and flowers. Hardly fitting for the man of the house.

But wine fabrics - now that fits my husband! We found some fun wine and cork prints at Quilt in Joy, paired them with textured solids from Moda and Michael Miller, and then she whipped up this manly oven gear set as a birthday gift.

The quote on the mitt, "A Votre Sante" means "to your health" in French. Fitting again, huh?

Even though he only asked for a mitt, she decided to make him a large potholder too. She attached the binding completely by machine to make it more durable in the wash. Here's a photo of her first attempt at blanket-stitching. Great job!

The back of both the mitt and the potholder feature the corks fabric, so they are completely reversible.

Each one is lined with one layer of cotton batting and one layer of Insul-Brite insulated batting. The pattern she used can be found in The New Handmade: Simple Sewing for Contemporary Style from That Patchwork Place.

Her dad was very happy with his new cooking gear. Lucky for all of us, that means he'll be able to keep cooking amazing meals for us on the weekends. But I warned my daughter - once all her uncles and guy cousins get a look at these, they're all going to want a set for Christmas. Especially Uncle Peter...