"New" Hotpads

 When Ken and I got married (over 12 years ago now!!) we were given oodles of hot pads. If I remember right I think I had counted 19. I gave some away as we obviously didn't need that many and then we put the rest of them to work. It was pretty obvious that they had been put to work when you looked at them. They had stains, raveled edges and had even been scorched. They looked pretty bad no matter how often I washed them.

  It was time to fix them up! I pulled out some old faded curtains (that went with the colors that I am trying to have in the main area of our house) that still had some good sections in them and decided to recover the hot pads. I had pulled out ribbon too which I thought I would use but then decided not to.

  I decided it just made good sense to recover the hot pads as the current hot pads still worked for insulating and I would rather use them again (as long as they looked a little nicer!) then throw them away. So with the old curtain fabric I cut squares/rectangles just a bit bigger then the hot pads them selves. Then I sewed them together like a pillowcase (right sides together and sew around 3 sides) and then turned it right side out and slipped the old (and clean) hot pad in it. Then I pinned the 4th side together, tucking the raw edges in. After pinning I topstiched around all 4 sides and with an X across the middle. That was all there was too it and now my hot pads look much better!

I had thought I should make a loop to hang them as that is how most hot pads are and then realized that was silly since I don't hang them anyway, I keep them in a basket on my counter. It would be easy to add a loop if you needed too.

 This project was quick and simple but also very satisfactory as it makes my kitchen look better while using up old hotpads and old curtains. I love projects like these!

Have you repurposed anything lately?