Make a Potholder without Binding

Gloria Hutson

1/28/2010

Even seasoned cooks accidentally burn their fingers on hot pans and skillets while preparing delicious meals for the table. After a few choice words and flailing fingers in the air for a few moments, they may admonish themselves because anyone who cooks should know better than to grab a hot pan or utensil without the aid a hot pad. However, knowing a thing does not mean accidents will not occur. Plenty of potholders within reach may make burning one’s fingers less likely. 

A relatively easy alternative to buying potholders is to make your own. The following steps show how to make a hot pad without binding the edges. But still has a loop for hanging. Scrap material or new fabric work well and if you like patchwork quilting create a block of your own design. Things you will need include cotton fabric, cotton batting, scissors, sewing machine, (needle and thread if hand sewing), ruler.

Cut batting and material into eight-inch squares--two material squares and one batting square for each potholder.

Place the material squares together with right sides together and one batting square. You should have two pieces of material together and one batting square. This technique is different from preparing a quilt square with the batting sandwich between two pieces of material.

Place material under the sewing foot sew forward five or six stitches and backstitch three or so, continue forward around the potholder sewing three sides, backstitch at the end of the third side. When you come to a corner stop the machine with your needle down, raise the presser foot and turn to align the next straight seam, lower foot and continue to next corner repeating this step.

With three sides sewn, the potholder resembles a pocket turned wrong side out. Remove from machine and find the two fabric squares turning the pocket right side out. The batting will now be sandwiched between the fabric squares.

Take a pencil or crochet/knitting needle, anything you can use, to push the inside corners outward to make the corners pointed. Fold the open edges of the last side in to make a one-fourth seam. You should still have two sides to sew together. If necessary, pin the seams together with straight pins to keep in place.

When sewing the last side down continue around the entire potholder to match the last seam. When you get back to where you started your seam, sew about a half inch beyond starting point and backstitch four to six stitches.

Lastly, you can either sew a simple x across the potholder to reinforce the material or follow a simple design of your choice.  Measures about 7-1/4 inch square finished.


Suggestion: Use cotton batting instead of polyester. Polyester tends to let the heat go through the hot pad. Cotton seems to block the heat much better. 
Wash and dry in dryer or spread out flat and air dry.