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.
 

 
                       

2nd Lunch Box quilt for charity

I liked the "Lunch Box" pattern so much that I decided to make a second one with the brown and tan fabrics.  This time, I used turquoise scraps that I had in my stash to supplement the brown and tan scraps that were donated to me by a friend.

Here is the finished top which is 64" x 72".

I hope you like it.  And thank you Bonnie Keller for donating the fabric.

More fabric donated and the first Charity quilt from the stash

One of my quilting friends called me this week and asked me if I wanted some of her old fabric collection.  They were mostly fat quarters and I ended up with a huge box of browns, greens, and blacks.  After sorting them into dark, medium, and light values, I went to my favorite scrap quilt book, "Charm School", by Vanessa Goertzen, for inspiration.  

I picked  "Lunch Box" to make this quilt.  All I needed to add was about 2-1/2 yards of my own fabric to give the quilt a cohesive feeling.  Well, I had jus the right red fabric and in just the right amount to pull this pattern off.

I cut the fat quarters of the dark fabric into 5" squares and 2-1/2" x 2-1/2" squares.  The light fabric was cut into 5" x 2-1/2" rectangles.  The red fabric was cut into 9" squares.  Super easy and fun to make, I made the 9" blocks and using half of them, layered them with the red fabric and sliced them one way; and the other half were sliced as a mirror the first half.  

And here is the finished top, which measures 64" x 72".   Perfect size for our charity quilt group.

I hope you like it.  

Black and white squares and log cabins blocks for charity - Charity quilt #12

I made a second black and white charity quilt, but instead of doing stripes, I made square in a square type blocks and offset them with log cabin blocks.  This is a super easy quilt to made with scraps.  It's 60" x 72".

I hope you like it.

Wonky log cabin blocks made with scraps - Quilt #13

This is the final quilt made from scraps donated to our charity quilt group.  I started with 5" squares then will nilly added scraps, any width to the squares.  I kept adding pieces until I had a large enough block to trim to 12-1/2" x 12-1/2".  I used 30 squares for this quilt, which is 60" x 72".  It was fun and freeing to just grab the next piece and keep sewing.  I listened to a lot of music and rocked out!

I hope you like it.

Charity quilt #11 with black and white blocks

This quilt was made with mostly materials donated to our charity quilt group.  I added solid black to tone down all the busy colors.  It's really fast to make!

You just sew 3 each of 2-1/2" strips of black fabric with 3 each of 2-1/2" strips of white fabric, then cut the strip sets into 12-1/2" blocks.  Then you sew 2-1/2" strips of fabric in a log cabin type of block and make them 12-1/2" square too.  Alternate the blocks into 5 blocks across and 6 blocks down.  And that's all there is to get this 60" x 72" quilt.  The perfect size to donate to our comfort quilts charity group.   

I hope you like it!

Trinkets modified for 2-1/2" strips and 5" squares - Charity quilt #10

I made the pattern "Trinkets" according to the pattern designed by Vanessa Goertzen.  See a previous post about that quilt.  Since I still had 2-1/2" strips and 5" squares from the material from our charity quilt group, I redesigned the pattern.  

Here's the pattern instructions:

Trinkets  65” x 65”
13” x  13” blocks

For each 13” block, make a double square in a square block with 2 different colors and one background fabric.  You need 25 blocks to make this quilt.

Each block needs 1 each 5” center square of the inside color
                              4 each 2-1/2” x 2-3/4” rectangles of the background
                              4 each 2-1/2” x 4-3/4” rectangles of the background 
                              4 each 2-1/2” x 5” rectangles of the outside color
                              2 each 5-1/2” squares of the outside color (cut on the diagonal)
                              2 each 4-1/4” squares of the background (cut on the diagonal)

 The first square in a square block:

Up size the corner square side length to 4-1/4” and trim the block after sewing it together.

The second square in a square block, using the first square in a square block as the center square:

 

Upsize the corner square side length to 5-1/2” and trim after sewing the block together.

The block showing the parts sewn together:

Sew five rows of five blocks each. 

Here is the finished quilt top:

I hope you like it.