Hot pads and Scrubbies

There is a big range of skill and interest and complexity in the fiber world. There are crafters and makers and artists. There is fiber craft and fiber art. There are people working on crafts with inexpensive materials, people creating simple or complicated items using more expensive natural fibers. Fiber projects can be functional things like clothing or dish towels, or art pieces such as a wet-felted “painting”, or they can include both function and art.

One of the things I love about fiber art and craft is the variety of materials and infinite possibilities of what you can do with them. I love all the colors and textures. There is always something new to learn.

Once I visited the home of a woman who knit exclusively cotton dish cloths. She had stacks and stacks of them. On the other end of the creative spectrum, people make one of a kind fiber art pieces that do not fit in any category. My friend pointed out that someone could take stacks of dishcloths and make an artistic statement out of them, so then it would be art. There are no rules, you can do or make what you want based on your skill and interest and budget.

I tend to make things that are on the more practical end of the range, but they can be creative and beautiful, even if they are not “art”. I like to have a mindless knitting project going that I can work on while watching TV. Usually I also have something else in progress involving more skill and creativity.

I participated in an outdoor Craft Fair (click the link to read my blog post about it) in March of 2021 at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort in Arizona, when the regular gift shop was closed due to Covid. I had not planned ahead for this or prepared products that were likely to sell. I offered knitted hats and other wool items I had for sale in my ETSY shop at the time, because I had them with me in a box. There was not much interest in wool items there, although I sold one hat. Someone asked if I had any kitchen scrubbies for sale. I didn’t, but I told her I would make some if she brought me the yarn. I found a crochet pattern for Kitchen Scrubbies and made a bunch of them for her and to sell. They were easy and quick to finish. After the craft fair was over I put the extra kitchen scrubbies in a bag where they have been ever since. Following is a photo of the scrubbies that I had left from March of 2021.

Another practical item I have made are potholders on a potholder loom. These basic looms are marketed to children, but adults use them too. You can make a potholder while watching TV or while in the car. There is some creativity deciding how to arrange the colors of stretchy loops, and the result is a useful product that makes a good gift. I published a blog post, Weaving on a Potholder Loom, in April of 2022. I made a few more this fall.

Late this summer I saw a pattern for a knitted Double Thick Potholder that would work using Peaches & Creme cotton yarn I had on hand. It looked like another easy project that would result in something practical. This pattern is very clever but hard to visualize how it is going to work until you actually knit it up. You knit a tube with a circular needle, then divide the stitches on to two needles and do a three needle bind off. That gives you a double thick rectangle with the top sewed shut and the bottom open. You then fold it so that the open end is re-arranged diagonally and whip stitch it shut. I made a couple of mistakes on my first try at this pattern, and my whip stitching did not look great.

After understanding how the pattern worked, I thought of a variation that would come out looking better and I made another one. Instead of a normal cast on, I used a provisional cast on so that there were live stitches at the beginning of the tube. When I got to the last step, instead of whip stitching the open end shut, I arranged them as if I was going to do that, but instead I put the live stitches on needles and did another three needle bind off.

Following is a photo taken while riding in Wayne’s fishing boat, when I was near the beginning of the second potholder. Not a bad place to work on my knitting.

After the right number of rows, I rearranged the stitches on to two needles. The next photo shows the second potholder as I was ready to work the three needle bind off at the top. You can see the live stitches from the cast on at the bottom, being held with waste yarn.

The three needle bind off is about 1/2 way done in the next photo.

After binding off the top edge, it was time for the clever tricky part that is hard to visualize. You take the open end and rearrange it diagonally.

After arranging the stitches it magically becomes a square. If I had followed the pattern the second time, the live stitches you see would be normal cast on stitches from the beginning that would be whip stitched shut. Instead, I put my live stitches on two needles and removed the waste yarn.

After doing a three needle bind-off on the original live cast on stitches and weaving in the ends, the potholder was finished. Voila!

I did not take any photos of the first potholder as it was in progress. Following is a photo of the completed first potholder next to the more successful second potholder. You can see what a bad job I did with the whip stitching on the first one. I made a few other mistakes that I did not bother to fix. I am pleased with the second potholder. It is plenty thick for using on hot pans and a good size at about 7″ x 7″.

The knitted potholder takes longer to make than kitchen scrubbies or potholders using the potholder loom. I will not be knitting any more potholders for now as I am on to other projects. I started knitting a pair of socks months ago, I am working on weaving some kitchen towels on the floor loom, and I have two different spinning projects going. Stay tuned.