Crocheted hot pads

My mother used to make crochet hot pads by the dozens.  Everyone in the family has several and we all use them.  Totally washable, they are useful and colorful.  Nobody seemed to have a copy of the pattern.  Then, viola!  My youngest sister found two copies in a box of stuff.  She set out to make them, but didn't know how to crochet.  She asked me to help her.  Little did she know that it would be the blind leading the blind!

We both struggled with the first couple of rounds of crochet and discovered that our tension was too tight, or too loose and we had "bowls" and "flowers".  I tore mine out and started over.  She kept going.  We both learned a lot from each other and YouTube.  I quit counting my stitches and developed a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants method.  My sister kept going with the pattern.  In the end, we were able to make only one hot pad that was of any use.  

I decided to rewrite the pattern to make it easier to crochet and easier to count stitches.  It's not the original star pattern, but simply rounds of single crochet and double crochet.  Good enough for me.    

HELEN’S HOT PADS
(revised)

 First color:
Chain 4, join.
Row 1              Chain 3, 16 DC’s in circle, join (16)
Row 2              Chain 3, DC in same space as Chain 3, 2 DC’s in each of 16 DC’s. (32)  Join. Cut yarn.
 
2^nd color
Row 3              Attach yarn. SC in 4 DC’s, SC in same as last stich (adding a stitch), SC in next 4 DC’s, add a stitch and continue in rest of row in same pattern.  Adding 8 stitches total.  (40) Join.
Row 4              Chain 3, DC in each stitch.  (40) Join.  Cut yarn.
 
First color       
Row 5              Attach yarn.  SC in 5 DC’s, SC in same as last stitch (adding a stitch), SC in next 5 DC’s, add a stitch, and continue in rest of row in same pattern.  Adding 8 stitches total.  (48)  Join.
Row 6              Chain 3, DC in each stitch, 2 DC every 6 stitches, adding 8 stitches. (56)  Join.  Cut yarn.
3^rd color
Row 7              Attach yarn.  SC in 7 DC’s, SC in same as last stitch (adding a stitch), SC in next 7 DC’s, add a stitch, and continue in rest of row in same pattern.  Adding 8 stitches total.  (64)  Join.
Row 8              Chain 3, DC in each stitch, 2 DC every 8 stitches, adding 8 stitches.  Join. (72) Cut yarn.
 
First color
Row 9              Attach yarn.  SC in 9 DC’s, SC in same as last stitch (adding a stitch), SC in next 9 DC’s, add a stitch, and continue in rest of row in same pattern.  Adding 8 stitches total.  (80)  Join.
 
Make 2 pads the same.
 
Joining the pads
Place the two pads together with all the loose yarn in the middle. 
Using same color as row 9 (First color), Attach yarn.  SC in one SC.  Skip one SC, make shell
stitch in next SC.  (Shell stitch is 5 DC’s in same SC).  Skip next SC space and SC in next
stitch, skip SC space, Shell stitch.  Repeat all the way around.  There should be 20 scallops on
the outside edge.  Join. Cut yarn.  Bury yarn ends.

Here are a pair that I crocheted from the revised pattern.

Nice memories.