Quick Pressing Pad

Most three-day weekends, we turn them into four by taking vacation on Friday and traveling somewhere. Tomorrow is the MLK federal holiday and I was itching for a road trip somewhere. A couple of weeks ago I got an email that Jay Leno was playing in Kinder, Louisiana at the Coushatta Casino Resort. Yay! We love to go there! Vegas it ain’t, but it’s a beautiful casino with great food and a gorgeous RV park. A couple of years ago they even installed a water park with a couple of those tall twisty slides and after an afternoon there, I realized I had muscles I forgot I had. I must have gone down those slides half a dozen times and could hardly move the next day! But oh it was SO much fun being a kid again! One of my favorite parts of coming here is that there is the Oberlin Quilt Shop just six miles up with road. Win Win! And winning is the point of coming to a casino, right?

So I bought tickets to see Jay Leno (who was awesome BTW!) and we arrived here Friday afternoon. When we travel in the RV, I usually bring along some project to keep me busy in the quiet hours of the morning because I’m normally up before Keith. I love this time of day – just me, a coffee mug, and peace. Ahhh. This trip, I brought along an applique project I’m working on to hang over our bed at our house at the coast. This is Beach Livin’ by Coach House Designs. I love this! It’s 52” wide and so perfect to go over our bed.

I have been meaning to make a pressing pad for ironing small things. I can’t believe I don’t already have one. Naturally, I decided this on Friday morning as we were preparing to leave. So I fished around in my stash and couldn’t really come up with anything I liked or was willing to cut into for a pressing pad. I recall that I’ve seen them made of a couple of placemats sewn together and decided to go digging for treasure in my linen closet. I had purchased six placemats probably at World Market or Target or somewhere that were beautiful, bright, bold chevrons. Of course I couldn’t decide which to get so I got one of each color: teal, gray, pink, yellow, green, and orange. The pink and yellow really don’t work in my house anywhere so they were orphaned in the linen closet since the other four are currently on my kitchen table. Perfect!

They didn’t really need any batting because they are already pretty dense by themselves. So I clipped them back-to-back (no turning here). I tried quilting pins but they just made it all lumpy and I didn’t think it would sew straight.

Then I dropped my upper tension down a bit to accommodate a hand quilting thread. I’m not sure if I really needed that thick thread or not, but better safe than sorry.

I made sure to change my needle to a huge 110/18 so it could handle the thickness of the two placemats and the hand quilting thread I used.

And in about three minutes, I had a bright, cheery pressing pad!

Now if I would have just remembered to bring my Clover Mini Iron I’d be in heaven! Really, that thing is awesome and deserves a permanent home in my projects travel bag. Don’t be fooled by the smallness of it. It has three heat settings and gets plenty hot for fusing or creasing seams. It’s specifically designed for applique and this kit even includes a cutting knife for small pieces!

I’ll blog on this pretty wall hanging when I finish it.  Enjoy the weekend everyone!  Oh, and the trip to the quilt store was a bust.  🙁  She’s only open now Mon-Fri and Saturday’s on-call.  I couldn’t reach her so… bummer.  I usually drop some decent Craps winnings in that store so I’ll be sure to call prior the next time we travel here.