A Pair of Potholders
Jun 23rd, 2008 by Tana
These potholders are on there way to a dear friend who will be surprised and [hopefully!] delighted to receive them. She spends a lot of time outdoors, and the colors in this yarn make me think of her.
They are made with dishcloth cotton. Double-knit. Loosely based on Elizabeth Zimmermann’s pattern in her Knitter’s Almanac. Originally I made a prototype for myself – just one – and then I made a pair for my sister and her husband for a Christmas gift one year.
Last year after Susie was born in October and my sister had a house full of company for Thanksgiving (everyone coming to see the new baby), I heard that those potholders I’d made had been the set everyone wanted when they had to take something out of the oven (there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen!).
They are quite nice. They’re just the right size. They’re thick so you feel protected. And they’re very flexible so they go where you want them to go rather than making you fight with them (as I have to do with some of the potholders in my drawer). Since they’re made with dishcloth cotton, you can wash and dry them right along with everything else (though they do tend to fade with washing so it’s better to wash them only when they need it).
My mom begged for a pair of her own. I finally got them done and gave them to her when they were here in April. And why did it take me so long to get them done? They may be a great finished project to have, but they are painfully boring to knit. You know it’s bad when I have to discipline myself to sit on the couch and knit something. That just doesn’t happen to me.
In May, when we were going through Steve’s job transition, there were a lot of things I didn’t have control over, but I did have control over my knitting, and my knitting world got a complete makeover. I went through my stash and got rid of the yarn that didn’t make me smile when I saw it, and I came up with a formula of sorts for what projects are on my needles at any given time.
I love knitting with my friends, but one problem I always seem to have is nothing to take with me to knit that’s mindless enough that I can enjoy the company and have fun laughing and talking while I knit. Nothing is worse than spending two hours knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging because you keep messing up.
Enter: knitting potholders. I now have a specific knitting bag devoted to them, and they’re always ready to go. A month of Wednesday evening knitting sessions and I have a set of potholders. If I have a painfully boring portion of another project I am trying to slog through, I can take that instead, but my potholders are always ready to go.
Now, I am finally working on a pair for myself. I can hardly wait to use them, and I’m savoring the time spent with friends while I knit them. Does life get any better than this?
oooh, they’re gorgeous!
A lady here at work crochets (and quilts and beads and scrapbooks!) and she works on potholders at the break table/lunch table for the same reason. She crochets lovely, thick, sturdy potholders that everyone covets and she says they’re so mindless that she can work on them and chat at the same time. I have one of them, and it’s my favorite potholder…but a few weeks ago I dropped it into the oven and now it has a burned hole in it. I’m considering begging for another 🙂
Yes, I DO love the potholders. And I love the colors in the new ones you knit enough that I’m wanting more, even though I don’t technically need them. The original ones still look great and work wonderfully well. I think I told you I packed up a lot of my kitchen linens and when I did, I packed every single potholder I had except for your pair because those are the only ones I use. 🙂