I came up with this cool stitch pattern. Worked with two colors, the foreground color lies on top of the background because of the constant back and forth cabling. Ends up with a rather thick fabric, about two yarn diameters thick.

For this hot pad, I utilized a thick cotton yarn, which has very little elasticity. Then I used needles one size smaller than recommended. That resulted in a stiff, dense weave. The same pattern with a thin wool is also super nice.

I worked a test patch with scrap yarn: Cascade 220 Fingering weight on US4 and US6 needles. That is going to make an awsome scarf. Just need to pick the colours.