A sewing tip - for those who sew...

My mother used to make her own hot pads.  She would take two circles of fabric and between them put layers of circles of old towels and sew it all together with bias tape around the circumference.  Then, she'd sew a little plastic circle to the edge to hang it up with.

Through the years, I have made many hot pads the same way.  They really are wonderful and last for years.  It has always been a challenge, though, because no matter how hard I try, the pieces will scootch around and it will get sort of buggered up.... until today!

In our Church, each woman ("sister" we call them) is visited, once a month by two other sisters.  We have a short lesson (it is called "Visiting Teaching") and visit for a while to see how she and her family are doing and assess any needs that there may be.  It's a wonderful program.  We like to give a little something to the sisters we visit for Christmas.  I decided to make some hot pads. I used THIS tutorial. I was up against the same problem of holding things together while I sewed.  Suddenly, it came to me!  Here is what I did:

I held the edges together with small bull clips.  It worked very well.  Of course, I took them out as I sewed.  It made it so much easier (sew much easier?) After putting it together like that, I sewed all around the edge and then applied  the seam binding and added a loop.

I made 8 of them, 2 for each sister.  I think this idea might be applicable to other sewing projects as well.