Baking is all fun and games until someone loses an oven mitt! What should you do when you have hot dishes to take out of the oven but don’t want to burn a hole in your wallet? Create one, of course! 

potholder main image

Do you want cute kitchen decor that looks pricey but only costs you a fraction of the cost? We’re giving you three fun and easy ideas so you can create your potholder to your taste! Be sure to follow our steps outlined in this project tutorial to create your own personalized embroidered potholder.

Why Create This Easy DIY Embroidered Potholder?

If you’re often in the kitchen cooking or baking, a potholder is used regularly! 

When creating your own embroidered pot holders, you can customize them to your decor taste by mixing and matching different embroidery designs, fonts, threads, and fabrics! The best part about creating your own is that it will certainly be one-of-a-kind and exactly what you’re looking for.

Not only do you not want the food burning, but you also don’t want a burning hole in your wallet. Buying decor lately, even potholders, isn’t cheap, so why not use up extra scraps or old items you have to turn something old into something new. Used materials that can be used include old towels as batting, old jeans, heavy-duty canvas, etc. There is one caution, though; make sure to use heavier woven material, not knit, and definitely not lace or any material which could melt under heat. 

This potholder is a pretty simple project to do! Not only can you create a pair for yourself, but you can also make it for a housewarming or birthday gift. 

Supplies Required For This Easy Embroidered Potholder:

  • Tear away embroidery stabilizer
  • Iron
  • Fabric for embroidering (if recycling material, use old jeans, heavy-duty canvas) – size depends on embroidery design used but should be 2 inches longer around all sides.
  • Batting (or could use an old terry towel) – size should be the same as the potholder.
  • Embroidery thread
  • Embroidery design

Now, remember that you don’t have to use this design for your embroidered potholder. To really personalize your custom embroidered potholder, you can choose from our giant database of close to 30,000 quality embroidery designs, or you can create your design text or image with our embroidery fonts, including BX fonts, ESA fonts, and Stitch File fonts!

Embroidered Potholder Tutorial Using Embroidery Software:

A basic potholder is just a bag turned inside out and sewn shut. You can make them in the hoop and either finish stitching it up by hand or use a machine and stitch around the edge.  

Step 1: Using your embroidery digitizing software, (we recommend Hatch embroidery software) digitize a square using a running stitch to fit your hoop. This will be your basting box; it holds the terry and canvas in place while it stitches. (If you are using a 4×4 inch hoop, skip this step- you will sew these on the sewing machine to give yourself a larger mitt).

pumpkin spice stitched boxes

Step 2: Add your desired embroidery design or text. 

Step 3: Digitize a square using triple stitch to fit your hoop. (If you’re using a 4×4 hoop, skip this). Leave one portion open on one side so you can turn it inside out.

final stitch line example

Assembling materials for stitching:

Step 1: Hoop a piece of medium tear-away stabilizer

Step 2: Lay a piece of terry cloth or batting 2 inches larger than you want the finished potholder.

Batting in the center creates a puffy effect while also acting as an excellent insulator to keep your hands and fingers safe. 

batting potholder

Step 3: Lay a piece of denim or canvas 2 inches larger than you want the finished pot holder.

fabric on potholder

Step 4: Stitch your design.

stitching design on potholder

To create the potholder:

Step 1: Trim the pot holder to ¼ inch from the stitching- taper the corners, so there is less fabric to turn over.

trim line pott mitt

Step 2: Leave a “tab” in the opening, so you have enough fabric to turn in.

Step 3: Turn the pot holder inside out and use a corner tool or closed scissors to push out your corners.

inside out fabric potholders

Step 4: Fold the tab in and press with a steam iron

Step 5: Either hand sew or stitch a ¼-inch top-stitching around the edge.  

Step 6: Sew a diagonal “X” if you want through the pot holder to keep the material in place.

Step 7: USE YOUR MITT!

Creating Machine Embroidery Potholders With Designs & Patterns

Once you learn how to use this easy process, you can create so many variations you could do one every day for a month and still not have scratched the surface! Here are three great ideas to get you started:

Quilted Machine Embroidered Potholder

Use a simple quilted design to create a durable mitt. Choosing different embroidery designs creates different looks.  

For example, this sun quilting design can be used for bohemian-inspired kitchen decor.

quilt sun embroidery design

When using an embroidery design, don’t forget that you can break apart the design and change colors in your embroidery software. Remember to have fun! 

Interested in a free 30-day trial of Hatch embroidery software? Click here to use it like you own it and create or break apart your embroidery designs to create your own personalized embroidered potholder.

sun quilted potholder

After adjusting your designs to your preferences, you’ve created a one-of-a-kind potholder ready to keep those hands safe!

Fun Saying Machine Embroidered Potholder

Another way to further personalize and add fun to your embroidered potholders is to add some sayings and text!

Check out our hundreds of sayings and phrases embroidery designs.

saying potholder

Remember, when using an embroidery design, use the same process as above. Insert the design inside the stitched border, leaving at least ½ to 1.0 inches between the design and the border.

Want to create your own sayings? Check out our 1000+ font designs, including BX fonts, ESA fonts, and stitch file fonts. Remember, fonts set the tone for what you’re trying to say!

Cross Stitch Machine Embroidered Potholder

Have you tried the new Hatch 3 Cross Stitch alphabet? If not, now is the time.

cross stitch potholders

Super easy to use and resizable; just insert like regular lettering. The Cross stitch lettering is used just like a regular alphabet and stitches like a dream. No counting or calculating. Just type in, and press go!

Conclusion: Bring the Heat & Create This Easy Embroidered Potholder

Pot holders are so easy and fast to make and can be done in the hoop, whether large or small. We’ve heated up the kitchen enough, so sit back with a cool iced drink, and let’s recap:

  1. Use new or recycled materials: old terry towels, old jeans, canvas- they all can make nice pot holders. Cotton is better than nylon when selecting material, and it’s best to avoid knits, lace, or non-woven material.
  2. Use different embroidery designs, fabrics, and threads to personalize your potholders -they’ll be one-of-a-kind!
  3. They are easy and cheap, which makes them great for regifting: themed mitts, weddings, holidays, personalized, logo, and more! 

P.S. If you want to create different embroidered potholders, click here to browse through our giant collection of machine-friendly embroidery designs. Plus, check out our Embroidery Legacy Design Club to learn how to save on our entire database of close to 30,000 quality designs. Or, if you’ve never tried our designs before, click here to download our Free Embroidery Legacy Design Kit.