Hot Pads Galore

For next Christmas I wanted to make all of my aunts and uncles a set of pot-holder or hot pads/trivets. Normally I make everyone caramel corn but that gets crazy around the holidays so I was going to take a year off and make something knitty. I started with a book my grandma bought me. It is called Fun to Knit Washcloths & Pot Holders published by House of White Birches. I made about 13 of these pot holders before I quit for the summer to knit all the baby things.

My one complaint about these patterns is that it involves sewing the two sides together. I hate finishing (as I'm not all that good at it) so I avoid it when ever possible. I was reading Kay's ramblings on about i-cord when I had a brilliant idea. Don't knit the two sides together, join them by i-cord. I was very new to the idea of applied i-cord so I e-mailed Kay and asked for her opinion. She informed me to pick the stitch up through both sides and do it the regular applied i-cord way. It worked, not exactly faster then sewing, though I am getting faster at it after finishing three pot holders this way, but much more fun.

The cool thing about doing them this way is that you can basically pick any stitch pattern you want to try out and make a swatch, then a matching size swatch in stocking and i-cord them together. Easy as pie and you made your own pattern.

Before I actually figured out how to applied i-cord I did a search on ravelry and found some shadow knitting pot holders. I will be honest, I got the book from the library, and I'm glad because there was only one very basic shadow knitting pot holder (the one on the bottom right of my pic) On ravelry there where 3 or 4 different designs and just assumed they all were from the book, but no. They did the same thing I did, pick apart the different shadow knitting ideas from the other patterns and put them on the pot holder. The great thing about these guys is no sewing or i-cord. I used size 4 needles with the same yarn (sugars n cream for all of them) They are not a thick still but are easily folded over. I might just make my goal for Christmas but will have a hard time deciding who gets what.

Now you see them...

Now you don't.