Friday night I came home from work and wanted to sew. I wanted color and a quick finish. The lowest hanging fruit, then, was to make the hot pads my family had requested. Super easy and rewarding, right?
I was happily stitching away when my other half came up to the sewing room. "What are you making?" he asked. "Hot pads" I replied (thinking if he couldn't tell what they were after asking for them I was in trouble!). "Hot pants?" he asked...slightly worried. Um. What? Why would I ever make myself hot pants?!? "No, just hot PADS." Goodness gracious!
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| Photobomb by my left foot. Thank goodness for that pedicure, Mom! |
With a bit of Essex linen (Navy), Denyse Schmidt plaid and a FQ of happy Orla Kiely-type kitchen mugs and pitchers I sat down to use Adrianne's tutorial. It was incredibly easy to follow and the templates are very helpful. Adrianne stresses that you need to use biased binding and indeed she is right for those curves.
It was my first time making/using biased binding, so that was a small adventure. Here I used Dottie Orange - I love how it works with the greens and blues in the other prints. A bit mad, but I dig it. I have to say, when I sat down to hand stitch the binding to the back, I was entirely grateful that there was a bit of give in the binding. So very glad I listened to her suggestions and was not too arrogant to think straight binding would due.
When you google Hot Pad Tutorial, every tute and blog post has a lovely action shot of someone bringing a casserole or cupcakes out of the oven showing you that they do indeed work. I am not a cook - I mean I can survive if left to my own devices, but I do not enjoy it so I leave it to my other half who loves it. When it came to taking photos of my hot pads in action, my other half was not around to model them for me! What to do, but make my own speciality? Peanut butter on toast. Bliss. They worked just fine - no fingers were warmed while making this delicious snack.
The biggest risk in testing out the hot pads was this monster. She loves peanut butter, so I was full sure she would steal my toast as I was trying to take a photo of it to my surprise, she just hung out in the grass and waited patiently for some of it to drop. Love her.
Once I finished off my other half's hot pad, I dove into those requested by my folks. They wanted two individual pads, so I tried to oblige. I figured while I was making two, I would make four so we had another set for bigger items (like massive pizza pans) that my onesie hot pad would not fit around.
Saturday morning I started making improv scrappy log cabin blocks. I wanted to do a QAYG block, but that proved very difficult given the layer of insulated batting AND the layer of cotton batting. These are fully from the scrap bin (much to Sarah's delight). Scrap navy Essex to back, scraps to make the log cabin, scraps of batting (both types) and a bit of binding I had left from another project.
I am quite pleased with how they turned out. They are a bit wild for my parent's kitchen, but they will not forget who made them :)
I quilted them in concentric rectangles, that you can see a bit better here on the back. I do really enjoy free quilting on a side project that moves through my machine easily.
The other two (that are staying here in Galway) are pieced and quilted, but waiting for their binding. I am sure they will be finished off while watching a World Cup match some night this week. Perfect time for a little hand stitching!
That's the word from Galway. Rest assured there are no burned figures in our house!
