It’s August. Time for blueberry pie.

But what’s more frustrating than handling a hot pie with a regular pot holder? The pie’s out of the oven, but now you need to move it to the table. Too often, the edge of the pot holder – along with part of your thumb – invades the pie and poof! No more pie perfection.

Ellen Bilodeau of Belfast has the answer. She makes pie pot holders that hug the bottom and sides of a pie plate snugly. They also keep the pie warm longer on the table, and are perfect for carrying your pie to a summer social, church supper or community dinner. If you’re one of those people who likes to heat up leftovers in a glass pie plate in the microwave, you can use also the holders to keep the food warm and your hands from getting burned. “And the fabric’s not hot,” Bilodeau said.

Bilodeau sells her pot holders – and other home-sewn crafts – in her Etsy.com shop, called Dog Island Corner, for $16 each. For this month, she’s got a holder made from blueberry-bedecked fabric for all those blueberry pies you’re going to bake from blueberries you picked yourself. And, if the peach season goes as well as it did last year, you can get a peach one, too. For the fall, she has apple and pumpkin fabric pot holders. Bilodeau also makes them for holidays, including Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day.

Bilodeau, a New Jersey native and longtime church secretary, learned how to sew from her mother, who was a professional seamstress with her own business. As Bilodeau grew older, she began to make her own clothes and work in fabric stores. She started selling her crafts at crafts fairs in 2005, sharing a table with her husband, who makes turkey calls.

“I retired last year and decided I was going to stop doing craft fairs and do Etsy as a hobby,” she said.

It’s been a successful transition and, well, as easy as pie.

— MEREDITH GOAD

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