Make it // Tunisian Crochet Pot Holders

In the continued spirit of using up what I have left over, I'm using some spare yarn that I had from my previous project, my mini hold all.

Pot holders are a practical and speedy project to do this.

Tunisian crochet is a very dense, firm stitch, so perfect for the job... for heat protection it's going to be double thickness.

What you need:

3ply cotton yarn in colours of your choice

4mm crochet hook (straight, suitable for holding your stitches on your hook).

I'm using up red and pink (again!)... Think about your colour palette and decide whether 

you want plain or stripes... or if you want more of a challenge you could work an intarsia design...

So let's get started..

Cast on 40 stitches (or increase to around 50 if your crochet hook can hold it)... 

Make your foundation row, looping through the top of the cast on stitches... it's not as hard as you might think to squish those 40 or so stitches on to your hook...

and tunisian crochet, switching colours as per your desired design. Remember that tunisian crochet is slightly taller than it is wide, so I'm planning 40 stitches across and 36 rows high for each side (i.e. front & back), which will still give me a slight rectangle...

my stripes are:

7 rows pink / 2 rows red / 5 rows pink / 2 rows red / 5 rows pink / 2 rows red

5 rows pink / 2 rows red / 7 rows pink

Then I'm going to switch to red and repeat the same design in reverse... which will become the reverse side of the holder.... Until I have the following...

From there, it's as simple as folding your work in half with wrong sides together, and DCing around the edge to close... Including along the join (or half way point of the original full panel), for consistency and to keep this nice and flat...

And you're nearly there..... here's what it will look like

Now you want to continue on from your corner, to create a loop to hang your pot holder, so chain 10 and slip stitch back to the corner of the pot holder to form the loop. 

This isn't that substantial so DC over the top of your chain loop (so your hook will go into the centre of the loop, yarn round hook, pull to front, yarn over hook, pull through both loops on hook) all the way around. This gives a neat eyelet type finish. 

Tie off and you're done:

How quick was that?! Too easy, right?