Last summer, while visiting my family in Alaska, I was taking something out of my mom’s oven and somehow managed to drop one of her hot pads on the electric heating element on the bottom of the oven.  Soon, there was smoke billowing out and, without thinking, I grabbed the hot pad out of the oven, threw it in the sink, dowsed it with water, and then reflected that it was perhaps a bad idea to have grabbed a burning thing with my bare hands.  Regardless, all was well and we were thankful that no one got hurt.

For Christmas, I decided to make her a couple quilted hot pads to replace the one I burned.  I used the quilt-as-you-go method that I learned while sewing my award-winning tote bag (I just like saying that!) and  they were fun to make!  I made log-cabin blocks in the traditional half-dark/half-light arrangement but with the modern twist of off-center central blocks and varied “log” widths.

the backs

I like playing around with these because you can make fun patterns depending on how the light and dark areas are arranged.

With four, you’d have a yellow star in the middle.

This way with four, the star would be blue.

I already have a request for a tutorial on how to make these.  So I’ve added it to my long list of things I’d like to blog about.  Don’t hold your breath but I’ll do my best to get to it! I do need to make a couple for our own kitchen so I’ll take some pictures while sewing them.