Five No-Pattern Potholder Projects

baking oatmeal cookies photo from Shutterstock

I am the kind of person who will, after the last of the store-bought-who-knows-when potholders gets a big hole in it, do completely without potholders for months, risking my fingers to pull bread and cookies out of the oven using a dishtowel as I continue to insist that I’m going to sew myself plenty of potholders “as soon as I get around to it.”

Hallelujah for holidays, I tell you. After I decided to sew potholders as Christmas presents for all my far-flung family and friends, it was as simple as pie to tack an extra half-dozen onto the list for myself. Since potholders are small and scrappy, no two have to look exactly alike, and with a plethora of wonderfully detailed tutorials online, you can make a completely new set for every household. The outer fabrics bust your stash of beautiful prints that you’ll still get to enjoy every day in the kitchen, and the inner fabrics can come either from store-bought heat-resistant batting, or just from old bath towels for a little upcycling bonus.

While you’ll have to wait until after the holiday season for my own favorite nine-patch potholder tutorial (there’s only so much craftiness I can do while spending Christmas ten hours away from my sewing machine), here are five more potholder tutorials that you’re going to love. Some are scrappy, some are sturdy, some are cute, and none of them even require so much as a pattern to sew–how much easier could you get?

potholders with free motion quilting and fusible thread from Modern DomesticPotholders do make a good showpiece for scraps of your most wonderful prints, but this particular potholder tutorial from Modern Domestic is noteworthy because it does exactly the opposite: it starts with your plainest cotton or linen cloth, and then shows you how to use free motion quilting to make it fabulous.

Also, if you’ve ever wondered how to use fusible thread–read this tutorial and you’ll know!

[baking homemade cookies photo via Shutterstock; yellow and green potholder image by Modern Domestic, used with attribution]

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