How to Make Simple Potholders from Old Clothes

Simple potholder madefrom old clothes.

Potholders are the perfect sewing-with-kids project. They’re super-fast and super-easy, and you can even make them with all recycled materials so they’re super-free, as well. To top it off, they make great gifts!  As you know, potholders are a must in every kitchen and who doesn’t need new ones? Anyone out there?

Here at Quilting and Sewing with Kids, we’ve talked about potholders before. The handprint potholders are really nice, especially for moms and grannies, but making them takes time, materials and some skill. To make potholders that require almost none of these three things, try making simple potholders from recycled cotton clothing.

Here’s all you need:

• Old clothes made of cotton (jeans, sweatshirts and flannel shirts are perfect!)
• Basic sewing stuff (scissors, pins, sewing machine with zigzag stitch)
• Thread (use up stuff you want to get rid of anyway)
• Round dinner plate (this will be the finished sized of your potholder)
• Permanent marker

How to make your potholder:

1. Cut apart the jeans and shirts at the seams so that you can lay the pieces flat.



Layer your fabric circles.

2. Lay the dinner plate on the fabrics and draw around it with the permanent marker. Cut out the circles.  For each potholder, you’ll need a circle of denim, a circle of sweatshirt and a circle of flannel.
3. Layer your circles with the sweatshirt between the denim and flannel and the pretty side of your denim and flannel facing out. If you don’t think this is thick enough for a potholder, you can add another layer of one or more fabric. Just be sure you don’t get it too thick to sew through! You can also make potholders with denim on both sides for added thickness.
4. Sew your circles together. You can sew around the circle a few inches in from the edge or sew across from one edge to the other or whatever you want. Just so the layers are sewn together.



Zigzag and trim the edge.

5. Zigzag around the circle as close to the outside edge as possible. Go around a two or three times to finish the edge. Trim close to the stitching, if necessary, and sew on a hanging loop, if desired.

You’re done!