Having trouble assigning a handle variable to a figure with subplots

Hello, I am still new to MATLAB and having difficulty understanding how to work with figure handles. I have a plot with subplots and multiple graphs within it and would like to pass the entire figure up through the function it is called to be displayed somewhere else only if certain conditions are met. Here is a simplified example of one figure:

x = (1:25)';
bl1 = x;
bl2 = x+3;
bl3 = x+5;
mbl1 = x.^2;
mbl2 = x.^2+3;
mbl3 = x.^2+5;

figure(3)
subplot(1,2,1);
hold on
plot(bl1)
plot(bl2,'g')
plot(bl3,'m')
title('linear')
subplot(1,2,2);
hold on
plot(mbl1)
plot(mbl2,'g')
plot(mbl3,'m')
title('square')

Any help/explanations would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

[Kevin Claytor]

function myfig = makefigure()
  % stuff
  myfig = figure(3);
  % stuff
end

and then

myfig = makefigure();
get(myfig,'Children');

will return the handles to all the subplots.

[Jessica]

I was misunderstanding the way handles work, this helps, thank you!