Knit or crochet a hotpad - PEP BB textile.sand.hotpad

About a week ago, I got my daughter's hot pad finished, but forgot to post pictures. She wanted LOTS of different colors, so I let her pick them, and tell me which color to do next and how many rows to make of it. I made it twice as long as wide so she could use it as an oven mitt. Here is the final length:



I forgot to mentiion in the tutorial, a really easy way to check to see if your hot pad is square is to fold it in half diagonally. If the edges match up, you're at pretty much a square. This is a great way to quickly check without having to pull out a ruler every few lines.



If you're wanting to make double-sided oven-mitt hot pad, all you have to do is make it a little over twice as long as it is wide (you want it a little more than twice as long as wide, because you fold the oven mitt in half, and so some of the length gets eaten up on the fold). Then you want to cast off, and then fold it in half and attach the two sides together. You can sew them together, but I find that sewing is tighter than knitting, and does funny things when you felt it. So, I knit the edges together (I can post pictures and a more detailed how-to if anyone wants them). So it looks like this:



Then, I use the strands/ "tails" left from knitting and braid or chain stitch them into a long line and sew it as a loop, to make the oven mitt hangable.




Then I throw the whole thing in the washing machine that's full of hot water!

After 4 minutes, it looks like this:



That's totally stretched out--no worries, though! I stretch the thing longways and toss it back in the washer. I take it out after another 4 minutes and stretch it longways and put it inisde-out, and throw it back in. Then turn it rightside out again, after stretching it longways. Here it is after a total of 12 minutes in the washing machine



It's getting the size I want it, so I watch it carefully now. I take it out after a minute or two to stretch it to the correct shape. Throw it in for another minute, check and stretch it, etc. Here it is finished



To dry it, I lay it on a towel and fold the towel around it (keeping it flat) and then step on the towel to have the towel soak up the moisture. Make sure to dry your hot pad FLAT, as it will stay in the shape you dry it in.

My daughter loves it! She instantly took it over to her pretend kitchen and got things to take in and out of the oven with it!

I just realized that I had not technically posted a picture of the yarn and needles. You can see the needles in the picture, so that's good. But, there's no picture of the balls/skeins of yarn. So, here's the picture of the yarn and needles (the red yarn is currently in use by my son's hot pad that I've almost finished knitting).

While at Wheaton Labs, I made a couple of hot pads. These are the progress pictures from one of the hot pads that I made. I made this one with cotton yarn, and it measures more than 10 by 10 inches on both sides. The project probably took about four or five hours, but I was able to do other things, while knitting, like listening to podcasts, watch videos, have conversation, and be part of a meeting. I am not yet skilled enough to do it entirely without looking, but I do only have to glance at my knitting now and then.

That's some good knitting! I'm pretty sure the hotpad has to be wool, though....mostly because the heat transfers through the cotton way too easily (I tried knitting a cotton hotpad a few times, and the heat always came right through it, no matter how tightly I knit). If Paul has wool yarn, you knit two strands at onces and use the big size 10 needles, and it should go a lot faster.

I really want to certify this, because it obviously shows that you can knit. I think the main reason we did crochet cotton washcloth and knit wool hotpad is because crochet has a lot less stretch to it, making it perfect for washcloths. A knit washcloth might stretch out too much, and not be so useful for scrubbing.

You could probably still use this hotpad for putting on a table under a pot, but I wouldn't try using it to take something out of the oven (ask me how I know, LOL!)

Yeah, I was working with the yarn I had with me. It’ll still work great as a drying towel/cloth, though! Even if it can’t get certified for using cotton instead wool, I could update later with something else, because I’m always crafting something, whether it be crochet, knit, or Tunisian crochet.

If you are going to do cotton, you have to have a strategy to make it thicker, or have an insulative layer.   There are cotton fabric hot pads, but they have an insulative layer.

So, I have this fuzzy skein of what I think is wool. If I made a hotpad out of this and then posted the pics,, do you think I would be able to get certified for this BB?

Does this skein look like wool to you, Nicole? It is soft, fuzzy, and has a wispy quality to it.

Dave Burton wrote:So, I have this fuzzy skein of what I think is wool. If I made a hotpad out of this and then posted the pics,, do you think I would be able to get certified for this BB?

Does this skein look like wool to you, Nicole? It is soft, fuzzy, and has a wispy quality to it.

Dave, one way to know for sure is to carefully light a two inch  piece of the yarn.  If it smells like burning hair it's most likely wool.  If it flames up and does not self extinguish it might be cotton or  another cellulose fiber or a combination with synthetics.  I like to do this at the sink with water running so I can quickly put out the fire before burning my fingers.  If the charred part feels hard it has some sort of synthetic fiber in the mix.

Be careful!!!  I do this a lot and have had some surprises where the fiber flames up more than expected...

As for potholders...I use the old woven type every day all day long made with a metal potholder maker and they are all cotton...a solid very tight weave...some are more than thirty years old.