Sew Easy Hot Pad

Do you need a hostess gift for your Thanksgiving gathering this month?  Do people even give and receive hostess gifts anymore?  Well, I say let's bring back the hostess gift!  Make a couple of these easy hot pads and couple them with a cute tea towel.  Your grandma or great-aunt will think you are the most well-mannered homemaker since Emily Post or Martha Stewart!

Materials needed:  

2 coordinating fat quarters

10" of insul-bright

note:  You can use up scraps from your stash, if you'd like.  Just make sure to use cotton material.  Synthetic material will melt--not good.

Also, your eyes are not playing tricks.  I made a couple of these hot pads and didn't take pictures of steps when I made the yellow and grey one.  Please forgive me.

1)  Cut four 9" squares out of the green material, two 9" squares out of the pink and two 9" squares of the insul-bright.

not shown:  cut a 3" by 5" rectangle out of the pink material

2)  Iron the two pink squares and two of the green squares in half to form triangles (wrong sides together).  Iron the pink rectangle in half (right sides together).  

not shown:  sew the rectangle down the long side, turn right side out and topstitch

3)  Stack your squares as shown in the picture.  Green square right side facing down.  Insul-Bright shiny side facing down.  Insul-Bright shiny side facing up.  Green square right side facing up.

4)  Stack your triangles as shown in the picture.  Pink triangle, then green, then pink, then green.  For the last green triangle, tuck it under the first pink triangle.

5) Insert rectangle between the square layer and the triangle layer.  Place it at a corner with the loop on the inside.

rectangle, triangle, square---Does anyone else feel like they're in preschool?

6)  Pin all of the stacks in place.  The more pins you use, the less shifting you'll have when you start to sew.  I was, of course, lazy and didn't pin much.  Don't be like me.

7)  Once you sew all the way around, trim corners and any excess on the edges.

8)  Open up the hot pad where the triangles come together in the middle, and turn it right side out.  Iron the hot pad flat.

9)  You're finished!  Step back and admire your creation and use it to hold that delicious dish of hot sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving Day.  yum!