Time to replace my ratty potholders--help!

[cookworm]

Please don't laugh...this is probably a very basic question, but I don't know the answer.

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! ) 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?

[jberry16]

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.

[Jan in CA]

I made an extra large thick "dishcloth" out of wool and then felted it. It worked very well!

[cookworm]

I always thought the acrylic would melt, so I was always told to use cotton.

See, I wondered this myself, but I couldn't tell what type of fiber was used, so I didn't know.

[Ingrid]

Someone crocheted me some Christmas-y potholders a few years ago, and I know that they're acrylic. They work fine--never melted.

[cookworm]

So to make the potholder, I would be just knitting a square piece of fabric?

[Ingrid]

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.

[cookworm]

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!

[gardenmommy]

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.

[Liliyarn]

Pot holders are an excellent project to try double knitting. You get to try a new knit technique, get a thick pot holder, and a cute little design.