potholders

I make quite a few potholders/mitts, though I never knit any.

My Grandma made some crocheted ones, which are gorgeous as decorations on my kitchen wall alongside copper jello molds and a couple pottery cookie molds, but totally useless for potholders since they aren't lined, and burn your hands every time. (aside - I guess that's why they have survived - no one could use them.)

But when I sew pot mitts, I have often used ironing board covers(silicone coated side toward the outside) to reflect the heat.Recently I have been making potholder squares and lining them with one or two layers of denim from old jeans (and batting also).They are wonderfully heat-resistant, but do take a little longer to dry.

For Thanksgiving, when we have about 20 family members over, I threw out all the old grease-stained, burn-holes on one side but still perfectly useable pot mitts. I hate to do that, since I am so cheap,er, I mean thrifty. But the fabric for the new potholders came from a discontinued fabric sample book. I consider it a gift to myself.

I also love knit dishcloths - especially seed stitch. Some pattern ask for cloths as large as 12 inches - but I like them just a little larger than palm size. Of course I have large hands, but not 12 inches!

But I am totally unable to knit the eyelet edge that I used to do. I can figure out logically that the yarnovers add a stitch to each end, so I need to decrease two stitches. And I want it to also decrease to form the other side of the square. But somewhere in the every-other row/every-row, how many decreases this time...

I get lost and end up with lozenge shapes. Hey ! There's an idea - I can turn them around and call them house-shaped. Yeah!

(The tiny sox are for CIC)