How to Recover Oven Mitts

Do you have an old pair of oven mitts that have seen better days but are still good enough to use? Today, I’m going to show you how to recover oven mitts and give them new life using pretty new fabric and contrasting bias tape.

As you can see, our old oven mitts were looking rather the worse for wear. No amount of washing would take out the stains from years of use.

Now I suppose, I could have made a completely new pair of oven mitts. I have lots of fabric and Insul-brite (<-affiliate link) leftover from making hot pads for our son and hot pads and oven mitts for our middle daughter.

But the inside of these ones were still good… just the outside looked shabby. So I put them through the laundry with a load of towels to make sure there were no food stains since the last time I’d washed them.

I took some pictures as I recovered them but this is more a how-I-did-it than an in depth tutorial.

How to Recover Oven Mitts

First, you’ll need to unpicked the seams.

Remove the old bias tapes from the top of the oven mitts. Give them a good pressing.

Go through your fabric stash and find pretty new fabric to recover your oven mitts. Make sure to use only 100% cotton fabric. Anything other than 100% cotton will not be able to withstand the heat of taking dishes out of the oven.

I went through my fabric dresser to find some pretty floral fabric.

Pin the fabric to two layers of a batting (<-affiliate link.) I used large scraps of batting that I had leftover from another project.

Quilt as desired.

For mine, I practiced a free motion quilting design I’m thinking of using for another project that I’m working on.

Pin the old oven mitts pieces to the quilted fabric as shown in the photo below:

Cut around the oven mitt pieces leaving about 3/8″ extra of the quilted fabric all around the outside.

Machine baste the quilted fabric to each piece.

This next step is one that I’ve found helps when it comes to the final step of sewing the thick layers of oven mitts together.

Serge, overlock or zigzag all the way around the edge of each piece.

This acts to compress those layers, making it easier to sew them together. The serger also trims off the extra quilted fabric so that it’s even with the old oven mitts.

If you’re not using a serger, use scissors to trim the excess quilted fabric.

Sew double sided bias binding to the top of each oven mitt piece.

Pin or clip the pieces right sides together.

I found that clover clips (<affiliate link) held them together much better than pinning.

Thread your machine with a heavy weight upholstery thread.

Cut two pieces of 2.5″ bias tape to make the hanging loops. Fold them in half and insert them in the side seam at the top.

Sew each oven mitt together using a 3/8″ seam allowance.

Turn them right side out.

They’re ready for kitchen duty!

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