The Potholders That Taught Me to Crochet

I learned to crochet because a folded dish towel kept slipping while I pulled roasting pans out of the oven, and after the second time I nearly dropped a tray of chicken thighs onto the floor, I decided a proper potholder was overdue. I did not know how to crochet. I knew the general idea, a hook and a loop of yarn, from watching my neighbor Delia work on something at her kitchen table one afternoon while our kids played out back, but I had never held a hook myself.

The first potholder, which was not square

Delia lent me a hook and a small ball of cotton yarn, the sturdy kind meant for kitchen use rather than the soft acrylic I had lying around from an old project of Nora’s. She showed me a single crochet stitch at her table, working slowly enough that I could watch her hands, and then sent me home with instructions to just keep going in rows until I had something roughly potholder shaped.

My first attempt was not square. It started square enough, six stitches across for the first few rows, but somewhere in the middle I started adding stitches without meaning to, catching two loops instead of one in a few spots, and by the time I reached what I thought was the end, one side had grown to nine stitches while the other stayed at six. The whole thing came out shaped more like a slightly lopsided trapezoid than a potholder. I used it anyway. It held a hot pan just as well misshapen as it would have square, which was a useful thing to learn early, that a functional object does not need to be a beautiful one to do its job.

Figuring out where the extra stitches came from

It took me two more attempts before I understood what I was doing wrong. The problem was at the ends of each row, where I was sometimes working into the same stitch twice without realizing it, especially in the corners where the fabric naturally wants to curl and it becomes harder to see exactly where one stitch ends and the next begins. Delia came over again after my second lopsided attempt and watched me work for a few minutes before she caught it, pointing out that I was accidentally splitting a stitch at the turn of each row rather than moving cleanly into the next one.

Once I knew to watch for that specific spot, the corners, my third potholder came out close to square, maybe half an inch off on one side, which I decided was close enough to stop worrying about. Crochet, I was learning, forgives small inconsistencies in a way that shows less than you would expect once the piece is finished and in use rather than laid flat and inspected.

A simple pattern, if you want to start where I did

• Chain 20 stitches to start, using a sturdy cotton yarn meant for kitchen use rather than acrylic, which can melt if it touches something very hot.
• Work a single crochet stitch into the second chain from the hook, then continue single crochet across the row.
• At the end of each row, chain one and turn your work before starting the next row, being careful not to work into the same stitch twice at the turn.
• Repeat until the piece is roughly square, checking by folding one corner to meet the opposite corner.
• Finish off by cutting the yarn and pulling it through the last loop, then weave the loose end back through a few stitches to secure it.

I made maybe a dozen of these over that first year, each one a little more even than the last, using leftover cotton yarn in whatever colors I had on hand. Some are solid, some striped where I ran out of one color partway through and switched to another without planning it. They do not match each other or the kitchen, and I have never minded that.

Moving past potholders

Once the corners stopped tripping me up, I tried a dish towel edging next, a simple border of single crochet stitches worked directly into the woven edge of a plain cotton towel, something Delia showed me as a next step once potholders felt easy. This introduced a new problem, spacing. Woven fabric does not have the same clear stitch structure that crocheted fabric does, so figuring out how many stitches to work into a given length of towel edge took some guessing. Too few and the edge puckered inward, pulling the towel out of shape. Too many and the edge rippled and would not lie flat.

I ended up somewhere around three stitches for every half inch of fabric edge, though this depends on the weight of the towel and the yarn both, and it took an unpicked and redone edge on two different towels before I found a ratio that lay flat. Unpicking crochet, at least, is faster than unpicking a sewn seam. You simply pull the working end of the yarn and the stitches unravel themselves in reverse, one loop at a time, which felt almost satisfying after the frustration of a rippled edge.

Delia told me once that she has been crocheting for over thirty years and still gets a ripple in an edge from time to time. That was more reassuring than anything else she taught me.

What is on my hook now

These days I mostly make potholders and the occasional towel edge still, along with simple dishcloths that work up quickly on an evening when I do not have the focus for anything more involved. I have tried a hat twice, both times abandoning it partway through when the shaping for the crown confused me more than I had patience for that week. I imagine I will come back to it eventually, the way most of these projects seem to work themselves out if you leave them alone long enough and return to them without the frustration you left with.

The lopsided first potholder still lives in my kitchen drawer, worn soft now from years of use, its trapezoid shape less obvious once you have folded it in half to grip a hot pan. I keep meaning to retire it. I have not yet.