A Hot Pad for Hot Food

Mid August is upon us once again.  School is just around the corner.  The days are getting shorter and the harvests are coming in.  This is the time when I start thinking about my favorite recipes and traditions.  This year I get to start sharing these memories with my Bug-A-Boo and hopefully pass some of my nostalgia on to her.

In honor of this I have another pattern out of the archives.  This one is a couple years old and came about when I was experimenting with the different possibilities for a pint glass cozy that I had designed.  (You never want your cold pint to get too slippery in the summer.)  After playing around a bit, it turned out that the circular design worked well in a hot pad.  The center of is is a bit high, but a lot of the old hot pad patterns had a high center as well.  This hot pad is thick enough to put your steaming casserole on the table and decorative enough to just have hanging around the kitchen. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

If you would like a pdf of this pattern and have a Ravelry account, a copy can be found here.

Feel free to change the yarn, gauge, or size to fit your needs.  Just please do not try to sell this pattern as your own.

If you have any problems that you think that I might be able to help you with, email me at GridMammalCrafts@gmail.com .

Chain Link Hot Pad

Materials:

            Size G, 4.25 mm Crochet Hook

            1 skein Crème de la Crème, Worsted Weight Cotton, Tan – Color A

            1 skein Crème de la Crème, Worsted Weight Cotton, Royal Blue – Color B

            Darning Needle

Gauge:

            18 sts x 20 rows = 4” x 4” in Single Stitches

Finished Size:

            9” in Diameter

Notes:

            Be mindful of the ring orientation when putting in the last ring to close the circle.

            It is easier to weave in yarn ends at the end of completing each ring

Abbreviations:

            ch - chain

sc – single crochet

½ dc – half double stitch

            dc – double crochet

Instructions

Rings

With Color A, chain 25, join with slip stitch to form a ring

RND 2: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), 39 dc into ring, join with slip stitch at the top of the ch-3. – 40 dc

RND 3: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), dc in the next 3 dc, 2 dc in the next dc, *dc in the next 4 dc, 2 dc in the next dc*.  Repeat from * to * 6 more times and join with a slip stitch at the top of the ch-3.  – 48sts

Fasten off and weave in ends.  This makes your first ring.

For sequential rings, after creating the chain 25, set the previous ring in front of you with the right side facing up.  Drop the tail of the chain through the center of the previous ring and then join the chain into a ring with the slip stitch.  Work the rest of the ring by rotating it through the previous ring.

Continue on in this manner until you have five rings linked together, being sure to link each ring together in the same way as the one previously.

The sixth ring is the last ring and the one that will join the links together in a circle.  Be careful, this is the hardest step in the project.   Put your chain of 25 through the previous link as you have done before, but before you loin it together, weave it around the first ring that you made and join.  Your linked chain will be in a kind of figure 8 and will feel wrong and tight.  Complete RND 2 and after linking with your slip stitch, lay out your work to make sure that all of your rings look like they are traveling together in the same way.  If it does not, pull out your stitches and try looping your chain through the rings again, paying close attention to how the other rings interact.  If you check after RND 2 and all of your rings are behaving, complete the last ring.

Fasten off and weave in ends.

Lay out all of the rings so that they lay down flat with the right sides facing up.  Now you are going to stitch around the outside of them to lock them into place.  With a new strand of color A, sc once into the top of 16 consecutive dc in the first ring.  Move to the next ring and sc once into the top of 16 of the next ring’s dc.  Continue this way until you are back to where you started and the rings are secured.  Join with a slip stitch to your first sc.  Fasten off and weave in ends.

Back

With Color B, chain 6 sc in a sliding loop, join with slip stitch to the first stitch. (Mark first st to keep track of the beginning of each row.)

RND 3: 2 sc in each sc (12 sts)

RND 4: * 1 sc in next sc, 2 sc in the next sc* repeat 5 times (18 sts)

RND 5: * 1 sc in the next 2 sc, 2 sc in the next sc * repeat 5 times (24 sts)

RND 6: * 1 sc in the next 3 sc, 2 sc in the next sc * repeat 5 times (30 sts)

RND 7: * 1 sc in the next 4 sc, 2 sc in the next sc * repeat 5 times (36 sts)

Continue on in this manner until you have 108 sc

Join with a slipstitch to the first stitch of the last round.

Fasten off and weave in ends.

Putting Your Hot Pad Together

Place your front ring chain onto your hot pad back with wrong sides together.   Feel free to tack both sides together when you like the placement.  The side that has the rings on it will now be the right side. 

RND: From the right side, start at a corner of the back piece with Color B, move 1 stitch to the left and sc. Now *through the front and the back, sc through the top of a ring edge stitch and the back edge stitch, spike stitch through the row below the next stitch, spike stitch two rows below the next stitch, spike stitch a row below the next stitch, sc in the next two stitches, sc in the next two sc only through the back layer.  Through the front and the back of the next ring stitch through the top of a ring edge stitch and the back edge stitch, spike stitch through the row below the next stitch, spike stitch two rows below the next stitch, spike stitch a row below the next stitch, stitch in the next two stitches, m sc in the next two sc only through the back layer. ½ dc, ch-1, ½ dc in the back corner sc, sc into the sc in the back.* Repeat from * to * 4 times, on the fifth time, do not do the final sc, but join with a slip st to the first sc.

RND 2:  Ch-1, *sc in the next 17 stitches, (1/2 dc, dc, ½ dc) in the ch-1*, repeat from * to * 5 more times.  Join with slip st to the first ch-1.

Fasten off and weave in ends.

To keep the center of your rings from trying to lift up, take a piece of color B yarn and sc into each circle from the center.  Slip stitch into the first sc.  Fasten off and weave in ends.

A Simple Cozy to Knit Mid-July

We're half-way through another July.  Thankfully, so far it is not as warm as it was last year.  That doesn't mean that it's not still a good time to go out swimming and have a nice drink in the evening.  Well, for the most part Bug-A-Boo gets to do most of the swimming and her Daddy gets most of the nice drinks right now, but you get my point.  :)

Anyway, I was going through my pattern archives to see what was there and what I could update. Along the way I came across this little piece.  I made this one a few years ago when I was trying to come up with a simple and fast pattern to help a friend move up from simply knitting and pearling scarfs.  Cables are my basic go to for patterns, but most people find them daunting and/or time consuming.  So I decided to go with a mock cable.  This would mean learning a simple knitting increase (yarn over) with a simple decrease (knit two together) and the stitch count would remain the same for every row.  By making it into a drink cozy the project stayed small and manageable.  With a simple ribbing on each side, the piece was less likely to roll and it meant that every row started off with knit stitches.

I had the initial pattern up for awhile on Ravelry.  It wasn't written very well.  There wasn't a chart and there were probably spelling errors.  After awhile Ravelry decided that it didn't fit it's pattern requirements and removed it.  It's safe to say that I pretty much forgot about it after that.  But here it is, back again, with a chart and everything.  :) Happy knitting.

Need a simple project or want to stretch your skills a bit?  Give this a try with that extra skein of worsted weight cotton yarn.

If you would like a pdf of this pattern and have a Ravelry account, a copy can be found here.

Feel free to change the yarn, gauge, or size to fit your needs.  Just please do not try to sell this pattern as your own.

Jenn Lin’s Coffee Cup Cozy

Materials:

·          Size 7, 4.5 mm Knitting Needles

·         1 partial skein Lion Cotton, 100% Pure Cotton Worsted Weight, Grape

·         Darning Needle

·         Pin

·         Button (There is no practical reason for a particular size.)

Gauge:

·         18 stitches x 28 rows = 4" x 4" in stockinet stitch

Finished Size:

·          ~ 3.5" wide x 9" long. This pattern can be made to fit around all standard size coffee cups and tavern glasses.

Chart:

Written Instructions:

Cast on 17 stitches

Row 1 (ws): p17

Row 2 (rs): p4, k4, k2tog, k3, yo, p4

Row 3 (ws): p17

Row 4 (rs): p4, k3, k2tog, k3, yo, k, p4

Row 5 (ws): p17

Row 6 (rs): p4, k2, k2tog, k3, yo, k2, p4

Row 7 (ws): p17

Row 8 (rs): p4, k, k2tog, k3, yo, k3, p4

Row 9 (ws): p17

Row 10 (rs): p4, k2tog, k3, yo, k4, p4

Row 11 (ws): p17

Row 12 (rs): p4, k9, p4

Repeat rows 1 - 12 five more times.

Repeat rows 1 - 11 once more.

Cast off knit-wise.

Cut yarn and weave in ends

Wrap the strip of knitting around a coffee cup and tack in place with a pin.  Keep in mind there will be some give, so tack a little tighter than normal.

Use spare yarn to stitch the edges together where they overlap.  

Decide where you would like the button to be placed and sew it on.