All you hafta do is.....

The words in the title are a toss up for me, my reactions to them can go a couple of ways.  The most common reaction I have is to simply tune the speaker out the minute those words come out of their mouth,  the less common but more productive thing for me to do is to try to understand what they are saying, this usually results in me with a headache and still unable to accomplish the task!  I'm pretty sure this is partly because I am primarily a kinetic/visual learner (if I see it and do it or read it and do it) hearing and doing is tougher for me.  There is however another aspect to this problem that is not my fault.  People (most people) are just not very good at giving directions!  Now having said that I am posting today an attempt at a tutorial for a project that started with me asking "do any of you know how...?" and ended with a friend who said "all you hafta do is".  And I think it turned out pretty well so here goes...
This is the potholder that started the whole thing, made by my grandmother for me years ago it is really pretty sad - this is what it looks like fresh out of the washer, and yes those are burn marks!  I don't usually use it but I started looking at it closely and realized it was crocheted and this is my latest obsession and I needed to make one like it. 

It is double thickness and it looked like the seam was in the middle on the purple side. 
Honestly I looked and looked and could not figure out how it was done.

I was going to the quilt club working  afternoon we have every Thursday and decided to take this ratty old thing and see if one of the ladies there (half of whom have been doing these sorts of things longer than I have been alive) knew how it was made, not really surprisingly they all did  :)...sigh.

They all agreed it was easy and then they all said the same thing...."all you have to do is"...!  I paid attention I really did but when I got home it just didn't make sense, so I wrote out what they said and thought I had it - even though it didn't sound like it would work.  It does!

Chain 33 (this is adjustable depending on the size you want) starting in the first loop sc (single crochet) all the way to the end do not turn, without increasing, go to the other side of the foundation chain and sc down the other side.  If you keep going around like this you will end up with what looks like a pouch (I used different colors - it can be done in one)

I just kept going around until I could do this with it.....

and sort of estimate how many more rows I would need...








till it looked like this.....

and I used a tapestry needle and the long tail end of the yarn and stitched the loops together in the center of the blue above.....the other side looks like this...

I am very pleased with this - it took a couple of hours to do in front of the TV (!) and turned out a neat little potholder that I can use or gift!

I know this is not a 'how to crochet' thing and I do assume you have some stitches already, if not I really recommend this you tube channel New Stitch a Day  the videos are good and that was where I did a lot of studying - there are a ton of how to's for crocheting on you tube.  Remember to use cotton or 'kitchen' yarn as acrylics can melt or burn.  (I have used acrylics and am careful but I never give as a gift!)

Let me know if you try one I would like to know if the instructions are understandable, because really, I just told all of you "all you have to do is"!!!   ;)