Mining Monday: 10 Terrific Potholder Patterns

Good morning, friends!

I want to apologize to anyone who was confused by WHEN my last couple of posts have been.  I shoot for between 7 and 9 am and to do so I sometimes write the night before (like I am at this very moment!!)  I made a couple of boo boos and hit "Publish" rather than "Save" or "Link" as I tried to - the buttons are soooo close to one another on Blogger!  So sorry!

Anywhoo... this Monday's Mining is all about potholders.  "Why potholders" you ask?  Because I've been cooking up a storm and I need some new ones!  I hope as many of you have fun with these as the great post about headbands - that one has had crazy reposting on Pinterest!!  Potholders are not as sexy as headbands, but hey, maybe we can turn that around?!?!

Let's see what I can find, shall we?  Here we go ....

These are soooo sweet and right in time for Easter - from Miss Mary Sewing Classes.  She has nice clear photos and good directions.  LOVE IT!

Anytime scrapbusting is mentioned, I'm in.  I have oodles of scraps in desperate need of some busting...actually for sewing, but, well, you know what I mean...  This tutorial for scrapbusting potholders comes from My Girl Thursday and it's great!

How about a gift for grammy (or memere, in my case) that doesn't require sewing?  Zip over to Ally's Helpful Hints for Mommies and see how to do these little gems.  Pick up some inexpensive ones and add your sweeties hand prints.  :o)

Have you ever watch that show "Semi-Homemade" with Sandra Lee?  The potholders with hand prints and this one made in part from a towel make me think of that.  Lindsey from The Allen's has a pretty quick/easy project using a towel and some fabric - looks pretty cute.  She calls them "hot pockets" - adorable!

This one could be posted on either my DIY Fabric Pinterest board OR my DIY Repurposing board!  Either would be perfect.  Jill (from Australia - how cool is that?) on her site Creating My Way to Success, gives you a great set of directions to create this for yourself.  Thanks, Jill!

This project is probably the most complicated of what I've shared so far, but I would say that they are well worth it, if you like to sew.  These come from the Sew 4 Home website and use Moda fabrics (always gorgeous) but you, like me, can use whatever coordinates you have at hand.  I felt like there were several very good sewing lessons at the same time!

How about knitting some?  This pattern from Katy Elliot looks fairly straight forward.  My only concern would be, without Insulbrite, toweling or batting, would I ultimately get burned?  Happens a lot in my world.  Let me know if you use ones like this - does it work for you?

This one ISN'T a potholder, it's a trivet made with felt!  YAH - can you believe it?  Totally looks like a piece of wood, doesn't it?  You can see how it's done at Shelterness.com.

Ah... what would a set of potholder ideas be without one from Martha Stewart?  Click through the arrows to the right of the picture for directions.  The template is on the first page, where you see this picture.

One can't have a pattern for knitting and not find one for crochet.  These are GORGEOUS and I might just have to learn to crochet just to make one! This comes right from Crochet with Raymond (who is her cat!!)

I hope you have fun checking these out.  If you have any other great ideas, let me know in the comments below -I'd love to see them.

Have a quilty day,
Carrie

PS.  One thing I forgot to mention and most likely you'll read about it when you check these sites out, but you'll need something to line your potholders if you, like me, tend to burn yourself.  I've used re-purposed towels, some re-cycled heavy duty felt and my favorite, Insulbrite.  If you are going to make a bunch (say for Christmas) you can buy a 20 yard bolt for $30 at Fabric Depot.  Okay, I am thinking you and 3-4 friends might want to go in on that - 20 yards of Insulbrite is quite a lot...