Let’s make Pillsbury Inspired Sugar Cookie Potholders, Stir Up Some Nostalgia With This Quick Pattern

I have always love the Pillsbury Sugar Cookies that come with a design already in the middle of the cookie. Ghosts and Pumpkins are what they have now and my kids and I would cook them up or sometimes just eat the dough (don’t tell anyone, LOL).

This little delicious cookie was the inspiration for my pot holder! It is such a simple design, but uses the negative space to show the ghost in this cookie.

This can be cut out on a Cricut Maker or just with scissors. You can find the patterns for either the Cricut Maker or just for cutting in our Free Resource Library! Sign up below to get the password to get this and many other free patterns we have in there.

Step 1

Material lists for this little potholder are as follows:

Print Pattern out at actual size
2 – 8.5″ x 8.5″ squares for the cookie background and backing. (Fat Quarter Shop has a wide variety of colors)
1 – 7.5″ x 5.5″ purple material for the ghost and eyes (Fat Quarter Shop has a wide variety of colors)
1 – 3″ x 3″ orange material for the eyes and mouth (Fat Quarter Shop has a wide variety of colors)
1 – 7.5″ x 5.5″ Piece of Lite Steam A Seam 2
1 – 3″ x 3″ Piece of Lite Steam A Seam 2
30″ of 2 1/4″ binding strip.
Thread for Raw Edge Applique and Quilting (I use Sulky 40wt Rayon)
3 – 8.5″ x 8.5″ COTTON batting for the pot holder sandwich

Assemble all your materials. Peel the back of the Lite Steam A Seam 2 plain paper and stick it to the back of the purple and orange materials. Do a light 3 second iron on these two fabrics to adhere the Lite Steam A Seam 2 to the back of the fabric. Do not peel the graph paper from the back of the material yet. We will do that later.

Step 2

Cut the pieces of the pattern out of the paper printout. Use these cutout’s to trace on the back of the Purple and Orange fabrics. Make sure to put the printed side down onto the paper side of the fabric for all cut out pieces.

Use the pattern piece circle to cut the circle out of the 8.5″ x 8.5″ background material. Use some tape to hold the pattern down on the fabric while cutting.

Now that we have the purple, orange and background pieces cut, we will place the purple and orange pieces onto the background fabric.

Start with the large purple piece and peel the paper off of the back. Center this onto the background circle, and continue with each of the purple and orange pieces until all pieces have been placed. Use the pattern to determine where to put the pieces. Make sure that the purple eyes are slightly under the orange eye pieces.

Iron all pieces down onto the background piece. Lite Steam A Seam 2 says to iron for 10 seconds to make sure it properly adheres to the fabric. I use a teflon sheet of all my pieces to protect the iron and the fabric.

Step 3

Take your background piece with the ironed on applique and TWO of the batting pieces. Use Basting Spray to hold all three pieces together for quilting. Keep the batting in square form for now. We will do the raw edge applique with the two pieces of batting on the back of the background. I suggest doing a basting stitch around the edge of the circle just to help keep it in place.

It is time to do the raw edge applique and quilting. I chose purple and orange Sulky 40wt Rayon thread to do the raw edge applique. For Raw Edge applique you will need to prepare you machine for free motion quilting. I just followed the edges of the purple and orange fabric to hold them in place.

Once this Raw Edge Applique is done add the 3rd piece of batting and the backing to the back of the piece you just worked on. Use your Rotary Cutter to go around the Circular piece through all 4 layers to cut matching circles out of all of the batting and backing materials. Again, use the basting spray on the 3rd piece of batting and backing and attach it to the front piece to make a sandwich of the applique piece, 3 batting pieces and the backing.

I then used a yellow thread Sulky 40wt Rayon to do some quilting on the outside edge of the purple and orange fabrics. This is such a small piece it doesn’t need much quilting. This quilting will show on the backing of the quilt and hold it all together.

Step 4

Bind your little pot holder! Use a bias binding so that it will stretch and fit in a circle. I used a scant 1/4″ seam to put the binding on the potholder.

Stitch in the ditch stitch the binding to the pot holder on the back.

Head over to my video to watch how I put the binding on this circular little pot holder. Binding starts at 9 min and 35 seconds into the video.

Step 5

Use your little pot holder or give it away as a gift! Everyone loves some kind of nostalgia and this little pot holder just stirs up fun of the holiday and making these cookies with my kids.