I made this oversized hot pad tonight. I started it last year, and paper pieced the star from a pattern at the awesome Wombat Quilts.  A couple of things I wanted to note:

1. I have given quite a few oversized hot pads as Christmas gifts, and they have generally been very well received. I like to give them because I am hard on hot pads, because I love to cook. This means I could probably get a new hot pad every year and not complain. These are the kind of gift I love to give because they are useful and beautiful at the same time.

2. I made the binding on the bias. I typically don’t do bias binding unless I am going around curves, and I usually cut binding 2 1/4” prior to ironing it. I cut this binding the same, and later wished I had cut it 2 1/2, because it was a pretty tight squeeze getting that wrapped around all the layers of batting in that hot pad (I put 3 layers of scrapped 80/20 I had lying around.)

I hope the recipient likes it, but I can’t tell who it is until after Christmas.