Repurposing & renovating

Recently Larry pulled a couple of pairs of jeans out of his closet to be thrown, they were not even worth giving to Goodwill as the seat was worn through. Before he threw them out, I rescued strips of denim from the legs. Ideal for samplers when testing out my embroidery designs.



Currently I am working my way through a pair of sheets, but I needed some fabric of a heavier nature to give me some variation. Denim was perfect for that.

The following week I looked at my potholders and bemoaned the fact that I would have to finally throw them away as they were really getting to look ratty. They had proved to be the perfect pot holders for me, I had tried replacing them but as my hands are not very strong (the result of having suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome before it became fashionable), I need pot holders that are not doubling as resistance training. Larry suggested that I could possibly recover them. !!Light Bulb!! (He comes up with some very clever ideas).

So, using the denim saved from his old jeans, an ideal material to recover the back of the pot holders, the working side is silicon and in great condition still. I played around with a few designs and, because I don't go much for the 'twee' theme, I selected to use cartoon type drawings of a hamburger and a hot dog.





The hardest part of this entire task was stitching the finished backing to the potholders, and I would be the first to admit it isn't perfect by any means - but it works for me and I am now on a quest to make, from scratch, some more of these, perhaps for myself, maybe for gifts.

I am hopeful that making them from scratch will be a lot easier. With that in mind I have ordered some silicon pieces. I will let you know how it goes!