This is meant to go under the bowl in the microwave so you don’t burn your hands taking it out. Therefore it is EXTREMELY important that everything that becomes part of it is 100% cotton. There is a batting made by “Warm and Natural” for the potato bakers which is cotton and does not have the scrim on it that other cotton battings have. This is what I used.
I selected 2 pieces of fabric, each 10″ square. They can be different if you’d like the top and bottom of this to be different colors.
I cut 2 pieces of batting the same size – one for each side and pressed them to their individual sides. Then I sewed an X across each 10″ piece to keep the piece together with its piece of batting. The first time, I used a poly thread, which I realized as soon as I finished the X and which I then took out and replaced with cotton thread. I have made that mistake before and had a fire in the microwave.
I needed some shaping darts. For a 10″ size I folded the piece in half and measured 1″ from the center out and 2″ down. Then I flipped the piece and measured the same on the opposite side end.
These were sewn, then I folded it the other way and repeated this. This dart needs to be one on each side of both the main piece of fabric and the lining piece. After I sewed down the triangle, I backed stitched straight up to lock the seam. There are a total of 8 darts. I then trimmed my darts, but that is up to you.
It was time to place one inside the other with right sides together. I pinned the darts to go opposite directions and sewed around leaving a small opening.
Pulling it through this small hole was difficult. Next time I think I’ll use about a 3″ opening. There I did get it through , smoothed out and topstitched.
As you can see, the bowl sits in the holder nicely and my hands are safe. It could be used to stack bowls as well.
PS Measure around your bowl from one edge, down across the bottom and up to the other edge first. If you need it larger I would make the darts 1/2″ longer for each 2″ larger I made the holder. Have fun and don’t be afraid to make them taller or shorter, just be sure to try the first one on the bowl before making the lining.
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