Why are manufactured pot holders so little and thin? If you grab a hot pan out of the oven in MY kitchen, by God and sunny Jesus you are NOT gonna burn your hand!

I have a lot of scrap yarn left over from my various crochet projects. I save every bit of it too! It gets rolled up into little balls and stuffed into an old beat up Safeway paper grocery bag. I keep all sized pieces of yarn from a yard long and up. The little bitty pieces, get tied end to end and then rolled into a ball about the size of an orange. I use this ball for small projects that provide me with what I call “Instant Gratification Projects”.

Instant Gratification Projects take about as long to make as an episode of “Coach” lasts. They take zero thought and even less effort. Most all of us who these projects cause they’re done in a flash and you can look at the finished product and say to yourself “Looky what I did!?”.

Does that sound silly? Well, duh! Of course it does but the big take away is the Gratification of finishing a project. No matter how big, or in this case, how small. It may just be a scrap granny square that you add to a pile of other scrap granny squares to crochet together to make a scrap blanket with but you’ve finished it in no time! *please take into consideration all of us have projects sitting somewhere in a bag that’re only partly complete, that we’ll get to “tomorrow”.

Enter the homemade, crocheted Pot Holder. The method I use to make these is now referred to as “Free-form” crochet. I used to call it “winging it” as I’m sure most other old timers did. Free-form crochet doesn’t require a pattern no matter what you want to make. I guess this is Free-form crochet in it’s simplest form and you really don’t need a pattern to make these but you need a basic idea in your head of how you want it to look. I keep all the extra motifs, granny squares, parts of crocheted borders I’ve made up to see if I like them etc in a zip lock bag just to use for pot holders. If you don’t have any extra parts crocheted and stashed somewhere; grab your favorite hook, make a chain or circle or whatever turns your crank and just start to crochet!

Even beginners know a few stitches. It hasn’t got to be fancy, don’t chew on what or how you’re gonna do it, but here is the important thing to remember that a lot of us overlook when making these; SAFETY!

Size and Thickness *insert 12 year old giggle here*. It’s true though, when I grab for a pot holder in my kitchen, it’s to pull out a 400+ degree metal pan from the oven to get on the counter quick. I want to make sure I don’t burn my hand or my pretty counter tops.

Crochet a shape, lay it down and put your hand in the middle of it. If your fingers hang over the edge of your crocheted piece, you got a ways to go! I always make sure I have at least 2″ of space bigger than the size of my hand. I have sausage fingers, pure and simple. If it’s a horse call it a horse. Occasionally, people with bigger hands than me have to get something out of my oven. Mostly I worry about a man or Amazon size Lady Friend. It doesn’t matter who it is, I don’t want someone burning their hand using a pot holder that’s way too small.

There are always 2 layers to my pot holders. So after you get your first side the size and shape you want it, make another one. It doesn’t have to be the exact match of the first one. It can just be one color. Make it as close to the size of the first one as you can. After all, these are going to be used as “Trivets” too. A Trivet is something you sit on your counter to put a hot pan on. Another reason to make them good and thick.

After you get the second side done, lay one on top of the other and figure out how you want to crochet them together. In the first photo, I’ve Slip Stiched the 2 sides together on both pot holders because one side was just a smidge bigger than the other. This works out great! In the second photo, I did a single crochet stitch clear around. Both layers were close enough in size, so I simply crocheted singles through both layers.

In the photo above, I used a basic shell to crochet the 2 sides together. For the brown one on the left, I added a slip stitch row just to play around with it. As far as weaving in the ends; I insert my hook in between the 2 sides and near the middle of one side. Which side doesn’t matter. Work the hook through those sides up to where there’s a hole at the tail of the yarn. Yarn over and pull the tail in between the sides. Give your pot holder a stretch and the end of the yarn should disappear inside. If not, pull it just a little tight, snip off the end and then give it a stretch and your tail will be pulled inside the potholder. Don’t worry, I’ve not ever had one come apart on me in all the years I’ve been making these.

I work with a lot of bachelors or gentlemen who are the cooks in their homes. Every single one of them are shocked at these simple pot holders. The comments always seem geared around “it’s actually BIG enough for my hands”!

You can’t buy these in any stores, they’re easy to make and last forever. I use acrylic yarn and have not had an issue with them scorching from a hot pan. If you get “whatever” baking goo on them just pitch them in the washer/dryer and call it wonderful!

That’s it my babies! Use your imagination and as always HAVE FUN!