Please don’t laugh…this is probably a very basic question, but I don’t know the answer. :oops:
I had some awesome knitted potholders forever, and they are finally wearing through…every time I go to use them, I’ve forgotten, until the heat from a hot pan seeps through onto my fingers! I got them from a fair that one of my kids had at their school…ironically, my mom’s best pair of potholders came from a fair that my sister and I had at our school, too!
So my question is this–now that I know how to knit, I can make my own potholders, but I’m not sure what kind of yarn to use. The yarn (although matted down from lots of use and washings! :teehee: ) just seems to me to be acrylic, but I’m wondering if it’s not something else…will acrylic keep the heat off of my hands? Do I need to put some kind of heat insert in the potholder? Is there a pattern for potholders? What gauge yarn should I use?
I usually crochet mine, but am wondering the same thing for knitting, wanted to make some for my Grandma’s b-day on the 15th and I was just going to use a dishcloth pattern and cotton ww yarn and use maybe size 5 needles instead of the size 8 they reccomend, or use size 8 and two strands of the cotton. I always thought the acrylic would melt, so I was always told to use cotton. I know my cotton crochet ones work, she’s worn holes in them. Hummm. guess I’d better get busy. Hope that helped, prolly not.
You could, or you could get fancy. Maybe it would be good to make a rectangle and then sew it into a square–double thick. My crocheted ones are thicker than normal knitting.
Mine are thicker than normal knitting too, which is why I asked. It looks like they were sewed somehow so that the seams were sewed together triangles which formed a square (does that make sense how I worded it?)–I couldn’t figure this out! Thanks Ingrid–I think I’ll take your suggestion of knitting a rectangle and sewing together the sides to make a square!
You could knit a very large square and to be decorative, fold the points in the middle to make a double-thick square, one side plain and one with the points meeting to form the triangles and sew the sides of the triangles together…remember folding cootie catchers as a kid…it would be kind of like that.
[b][color=indigo]I’ll bet the one you are describing was crocheted like this one. It’s done in the round and I’m wondering if it couldn’t be done in knit, too. Hmmmmm perhaps I’ll try that out today and see what I can come up with. They are by far the very best hot pads I’ve ever had. Mine are made out of cotton. But wool is also a very good choice for them as wool doesn’t conduct heat well and is relatively fire proof. Acrylic will melt if hot enough but the bigger problem, IMO, is that it conducts heat so well that it’s hard to get it thick enough to be protective and still pliable enough to wrap well around a skillet handle.
I’m doing some right now using cotton yarn. I’m going to take a washcloth pattern, making two, then I’m going to crochet them together. You could definitely do double knitting though.
LoAnnie
I made a potholder for my BF’s mom. I double knitted it, maroon on one side and a beige on the other side. I inserted and beige “A” on the maroon side and a maroon “A” on the beige side, (since their last name starts with “A”.
I used thick acrylic/nylon mix. Then when I was done I layed it on my ironing board, but a really thin towel over it, and steam ironed the heack out of it. It blocked it, and kind of made it blend together. She uses it all the time. Wish I had a picture of it.
Isn’t double knitting hard? I watched Amy’s video on it, but I’m still scared to try. Although, this is a small project, so maybe it’s the perfect time to try it?
I found a free pattern at Lion Brand’s website for potholders using worsted cotton yarn, which I already have some in my stash! :happydance: But the pattern calls for the potholders to be triple stranded. I have some bulky cotton yarn in my stash…would I be able to use that too, or does the triple stranded cotton yarn offer a better protection from heat than a single strand of bulky cotton yarn might? Maybe some heat might get through some of the holes in the knitting work if i just used single stranded bulky cotton yarn? :?? I’m probably making this out to be harder than it is, but I’m just trying to be safe…I don’t want to knit something, thinking it’s going to be okay to use, then grab a hot pan with my “faulty” potholders that I spent time to make that may not really work and wind up burning my hands and fingers.
I have some acrylic and cotton crocheted and knitted potholders in my kitchen drawer. Some of my acrylic ones did melt in places. I still use them, but they look yucky. I’ve never had that happen with my cotton ones, though.
You might try holding two strands of worsted wt cotton together to get them extra thick.
cookworm, if you have enough yarn for the triple stranding, I’d go for it. Do you really want to risk it not being thick enough? I’m guessing that if Lion Brand put it up on their site, someone tested it to make sure it didn’t get too hot!
We don’t use potholders, so I can’t give you much more help than that. We’re an oven-mitt kinda family. And my friend who is a chef (She used to work at John Georges in NYC :drool:) uses “ov-gloves” which are similar but not cloth.
This is the pattern that I use for potholders–and I use triple strands of cotton yarn and they work really well. The pattern is very simple and pretty.
Yes, they’re used like oven gloves, but they are just flat, thick squares of cloth used to protect the hands from burns and heat.