Well, maybe not entirely OT but sort of. Yesterday I made it impossible for the fbi to identify my body by my fingerprints. They'll have to call my highly-skilled and expensive dentist, I reckon. I removed my fingerprints. Before taking a cast iron skillet of cornbread from the oven, I put a sheet of aluminum foil on a granite counter top to dump it over on. The foil slid, the skillet slipped and the potholder was such a limp sissy. All sorts of lessons learned here - but! it would have helped A LOT if I'd been using potholders that were better. Is Insulbright really safe for 425°? I bypass the pretty potholders for real baking; am curious about the newer stuff. Anybody have a pattern for 14-button elbow length potholders? What do you use when you are into really serious hot skillets? Don't hurry to answer. I'm off to rob a bank. Polly (who can not be identified)
If you're gonna rob a bank, better do it this week. I think fingerprints grow back.
I don't know the answer, but I love the question. I would like to spend some some time that you just want a short project into making some potholders. and hope we get some input on how effective insulbrite really is. Cast iron skillets are the only way to go around here for baking cornbread.
Can't you just see me in one of those suits that the bomb squad uses? . . . but yes, the only way to bake cornbread is at high heat and in a cast iron skillet. Polly
If you're gonna rob a bank, better do it this week. I think fingerprints grow back.
I don't know the answer, but I love the question. I would like to spend some some time that you just want a short project into making some potholders. and hope we get some input on how effective insulbrite really is. Cast iron skillets are the only way to go around here for baking cornbread.
I hope you had an Aloe Vera plant handy! Not the stuff in the bottle for sunburn, but the real thing. It's absolutely a miracle for burns. Break off a leaf, spike really, and squeeze the liquid inside on the burn. Stops pain and within a few minutes you will forget you even had a burn. Michelle G.
Pot holders are one item I never skimp on, so robbing a bank first might still be in order!
I am owned by an Aga, and my propensity to burn myself knows no bounds! My best trick is to remove heavy cast iron casserole from top oven with gloves, remove the gloves and then remove the lid with bare fingers.
I use commercial, elbow-length mitts with opposable thumbs made by either Aga or Le Creuser. I don't care about looks, or colours, I'm into safety, and they have to be both steam-proof and water-resistant, too. I've scalded myself so often slopping boiling water/soup/stock to duck that issue. But I can often pick these up in Sales because they are a weird or out-of-fashion colour or combination. So i look out for them.
I have also used those made for Laboratories and Professional Kitchens, but they are a little harder to get hold of, unless you are attached to a School with a Catalogue of such things.
I would never dream of making these, no matter what the professed properties and guarantees on the bolt. Sewing makes a difference, like with waterproofing. I'm not taking more chances than I need to. I quite like to have finger-prints once in a while, and my wrists tend to look as though I've been up to no good (having bounced off the racks) if the gauntlets are too short. I'm too careless, especially when in a rush.
OK when am I ever in anything else? Dunansurthat!
Good hunting! Nel (Gadget Queen) who loves baking and all things culinary.
I've bought some insulbright but haven't used it as intended yet. Not for mitts, but for a few padded covers for my ceramic flat top stove. I'd wanted a light colored top, but of course those just weren't available when I was buying, so I have a black topped stove which, as all black car owners know, shows every smear, scratch, and fingerprint. I figured a padded cover would protect the unwary from a warm cooktop, and the ceramic from unexpected burdens that might drop on it. It's a UFO at the moment. (: Musicmaker
Are you sure it is okay to put a padded cover on your cooktop? My sister holds the World's Record for burning even the 'safe' ones. Maybe you'd be better off following the theory of "if you can't convince them, distract them" - meaning only that you could distract from the smears, scratches and fingerprints by setting a cobalt blue kettle on the cooktop. Yum. Doesn't that sound pretty? Polly
"Musicmaker" I've bought some insulbright but haven't used it as intended yet. Not
Thank you, Nel. I should have realized our Gadget Queen would know the right words for a search. The potholders Grandma crocheted work okay for barely hot pans but I'll look for Aga and LeCreuser. Sometimes we just have to have cornbread. Polly
I had forgotten about Aloe Vera plants, Michelle. Used to keep one in the kitchen when we had teenagers and a marathon of french-frying going on. I don't think those boys ever got full; just got tired chewing. Polly
"Michelle G." I hope you had an Aloe Vera plant handy! Not the stuff in the bottle for
Polly, I have made and used both pot holders and mitts with Insulbright. Remember to read the instructions.... you also need cotton batting with the Insulbright. The cotton is for the steam issue. I have an oven mitt pattern that I use that has the "thumb" in the middle of the palm. Makes it very user-friendly. Will try to get a photo later (remind me, please.) (Have to finish up here, do some paperwork and go teach a Bag Lady class.) I also make the mitt as long as I want to protect my wrist/forearm from the oven and pans. Love to cook with cast iron, but do have to be careful with it. sigh. Oh, I also make my potholders larger than many store bought. I want the protection.
OF course, a couple/three layers of cotton batting also works well for potholders/mitts.
And, DH got me a gift last year that is nifty. They are padded Nomex (sp??) covers that snap onto the edges of the oven racks. Just stay on there. Has helped a lot to prevent the "reach in and hit the rack" burns. I believe he got them from Lee Valley. (Which has a lot of nifty stuff useful in the sewing room as well as kitchen and workshop.)
Owwee! Wipe a damp cloth over your counter before putting foil down, then it won't slip. Use oven mitts, they at least stay on your hands. You can get extra-long ones made for accident-prone husbands who like to grill. IMO it's not really worth making these yourself. One, by the time you buy all the special insulaters you haven't saved any money. And two, I am too emotionally invested in my own creations to enjoy watching them become stained and icky in the kitchen.
AFAIK, your f>Well, maybe not entirely OT but sort of.
Poor Polly, hope you're not in too much pain. A sore finger will make anybody immediately realize why 'stand out like a sore thumb' became a catch-phrase. I make Insulbrite hot pads, one layer of Insulbrite with cotton batting on either side. They're great. Until you grab one in a hurry and it's a little bit damp, or something's burning and needs to come out fast and you can't find the hot pad, or .... So I tend to just do what my Granny always did. I grab a fresh, clean (read not damp even a little bit) kitchen towel, fold it over and over and use that to retrieve anything out of the oven. Now, I don't use little dainty thin cotton towels. My darling and smart husband years ago brought home a package of those big, linty, terry cloth garage towels. White, of course. They're workhorses. And they're pretty good about not letting my little fingers get burnt.
BUT -- my heart (and scorched and branded arm flesh) yearns for one of those silicone mitts that will handle any temperature up to and including lava. One of these days I'll skip the fabric aisle and buy one of those.
Question for the day: Why does it seem outrageous to pay $20 for a silicone glove to protect my hands and will last forever, but just plain sensible and downright thrifty to spend $20 for fat quarters on FQ Fridays when they're all on sale for $1.75?
Sunny who always keeps aloe plants on the window sill
I have never used insulbright for anything. I have certainly had the experience of wimpy store bought potholders not being up to the job!
My problem is my DH gets to cooking and he is not all that good about putting things away. In fact he has a positive genius for misplacing things really really well. When I couldn't find any of my potholders anywhere, I grabbed a pair of "monkey grips" to take an Enchanted Broccoli Forest out of the oven. He was not thrilled, but was well in line with the concept of not burning the supper. kiri on the other hand was all but running around in circles yelping because "you don't know where those have been!" I almost expected her to start shouting "Get some hot water! Get some iodine!" So she went out and bought me a glove. I hate oven mitts, I really do. So I use the thing kind of grudgingly, but it works. It is a glove knitted out of some kind of heat resistant stuff. It is completely washable, and at least it has fingers.
My favorite potholders are the loom-looper ones my kids made out of cotton jersey loops some 20 years ago. I've got me a couple of hot pads kids and grandkids have made for me by gluing ceramic tiles to squares of wood too. Get your grandkids to work, those two items are some of the best in the kitchen.
I have some other ones that a friend of ours down in PA made as part of her physical therapy after she had some pretty serious injuries in a car crash. She crocheted up a mess of potholders and snowflake christmas ornaments and got mocked for them by her relatives, so she sent me the lot. The potholders are kind of amazing, I have never had a crocheted potholder where you were not taking chances of getting burned between the stitches before. She did them with crochet cotton, worked two rows of double stiching back to back in the round, with the stitches in the second row falling between the stitches in the first, and then sealed the double row together with a row of single stitches, and kept progressing thusly. Just amazing considering she was having to learn to walk, talk, and use her hands all over again.
When I make them out of fabric, I uses a few layers of terrycloth cut to size, smack a spare quilt block on top, machine quilt it, and then bind it. a good use for worn towels and washcloths, or that eyebleeding towel set that Aunt Mergatroide got you too brighten up your bathroom.
We have a couple pieces of corelle that are just the right size to turn cornbread out of the skillet onto.
I've made potholders that work great. I make layers of warm'n'natural and the silver stuff that Jo-Anns sells to cover ironing boards with.... layer 1-fabric right side down (this will be the bottom side) layer 2 - warm'n'natural layer 3 - ironing board cover fabric silver side down. layer 4 - ironing board cover fabric silver side up layer 5 - warm'n'natural layer 6 - fabric right side up.
Then I quickie quilt it with as few rows as possible - just to hold it together. Then I sew on the binding. Have never had a burnt finget (yet). ME-Judy
Years ago I bought a PanHandler commercial-grade potholder from a wholesale kitchenware store. (How many years? When we lived in Portland, ME, and we moved from there to Auburn in 1985.) I still have it, mostly because it hasn't worn out. I googled and found a couple of sources (out of stock at one place, however).
I recently replaced my homemade potholders after years of service (one dating back to Auburn, from which we moved in 1994) -- they'd gotten sufficiently splattered and singed so that they never got really clean. I make potholders using "Warm Window," the insulated windowshade stuff. I bought it at Joann's, but I don't think they carry it any more. 1 yd. of Warm Window makes a lot of potholders and as you can tell from my story, my potholders last a long time.
Has anyone had experience with the SilPat and other silicone potholders, hotpads, and/or cookware?
Hurry up w/ that bank job so you can buy all kinds of potholders (or pay quilters to make you some) and some Bob Curry terra cotta pottery to bake some cornbread (I don't do cast iron because my mother doesn't live here). You know, you go around talking about not having the right kind of pot holders and you're likely to be SHOWERED with them. ... I'm just sayin'... . ;-D
R/Sandy - w/ all k> Can't you just see me in one of those suits that the bomb squad uses? . . .
There's a large collection of pot holders here, Sandy - but for the most part they are: too big, too inflexible to be useful, too time-consuming; and some that are too pretty. I've been looking at what else is available and now wonder this: Has anyone ever really felt the urge to reach into a pot of boiling water and remove an egg? I see pot holders that will let you do it; just don't know when to expect that sort of inclination. And I love your "(I don't do cast iron because my mother doesn't
Gosh, I treasure the big cast iron pan my mama gave me. My kids argue over who gets it when I die. My favorite potholders are plain old quilted square ones in fabric kind of like ironing board covers. I get them in 6 packs and then there is always one at hand. I never had the urge to reach into a pot of boiling water but have grabbed a hot cookie sheet a couple of times. It is easy to have a lot going on in the kitchen and get distracted. Around here the kitchen is a nightmare this week. Tile going on the back splash, cabinets getting refinished and a mess of painting going on. I keep telling dh we should just buy a house someone else has re-done. That or hire a work force. Taria
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