Vintage potholders

I have been fascinated by vintage hot pads lately. I think someone posted a photo at Flickr about their kitchen wall, where she had collected crocheted hot pads, you know, those small and slightly worn cotton (or cottonlike) material that makes you think of WWII... and I hate them, because they are so ugly and useless... but that wall made them look good. Really nice...

There's tons of free patterns online, you'll be most likely to locate just the pattern for your grandmother's potholders. But when I was looking, I googled "kaleidoscope hot pad crochet" and this is part of what I got:

What does any of that has to do with kaleidoscope pot holders? And how did someone manage to stuff a pet bottle with all those things? Naturally THAT link was dead. (I managed to find this one...)
The crocheted shopping bag is here, the messy basket that looks like a bird's nest is "crocheting with strips of fabric", and most of the other stuff is from there too, like the green thingy. Then there's the "garden candle holder", which I would call hippie-style lantern, and "cucumber and corn panhandlers" (cucumber?)
But... really fascinating. I just wanted to share with you :-)

It's the second day of 30 days to Beltane.