Fused Plastic Placemats

I got a suggestion from the wonderful Kelly @ The Urban Infant to make some kid-sized placemats from fused plastic. I've shipped some bibs to her and she wanted to try this as well. I had a head-slap moment- not sure why I hadn't thought of this before. It seems like someone gave me the idea a while ago, but I'd always thought of them as larger, standard size and that would require sewing several pieces together. It would work, but isn't as easy to clean and doesn't necessarily lay as flat as a placemat should (especially for clumsy eaters like me- we don't need any help making mess).

Rory got the prototype and loves it. I whipped up eight more that are currently on their way to The Urban Infant in Chicago. I think these will make their way to the Etsy shop soon. Maybe in sets of 2? 4? Paired with a bib?

Recover!

I've been playing with recovering the ironing board for a while now. It's got some mystery spots on it, no doubt from plastic. Or spray starch. Or possibly fusible interfacing. Or...

I had enough of this green star fabric in my stash to make a new cover and decided to tackle it today. It was surprisingly simple. I traced the ironing board shape, plus some extra around the edges onto the new fabric, sewed a bias tape casing, then added elastic (which I like better than the old cover's drawstring). Ta-da! Now when I manage to get this one full of mystery spots, I won't be as hesitant to whip up another cover.

Rory took a look and said, "Good job, Momma, you did it!" which I think she really meant as, "Now can we get to that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, please?"

Nesting

I've been a pregnant nesting fool. Jack will be here in April (probably), so it's a good thing. I've been crossing things off my to-clean-out list and annoying garbage men with my overflowing trash bin. It's a good thing.

I had a serious need to (one) make baby Jack something and (two) use some fabric remnants that I'd picked up on sale and fallen in love with. I was over at Kelli/Wayne/Landry's the other week for some excellent food and Cowboys football (Woo!) and played with putting some fabric on burp cloths. We were having a tough time with the cloth and fabric pulling and tried to come up with a good strategy for sewing them. I was searching for more info and found this tutorial at Chickpea Sewing Studio, which uses a teeny tiny zig-zag stitch and found that it works beautifully.

Holiday Baking

This year was a good time to be standing in the kitchen. It smelled delicious for the better part of December. I made biscotti with Margaret:

The Duncan girls got together for another round of cookie baking, I made biscotchos and homemade tortillas for the family Christmas party (and forgot to take pictures of both events...), and Margaret and I had our annual Tamalepalooza. This year's batch was Red Chile Pork:

Is it already 2010?

Whoops. I've fallen way behind on my blog. Instead of trying to throw everything that I made for Christmas all into one post, I'll just highlight one of my favorites. It's a long story (and even mildly funny), but this was created as a special request, limited edition (1 of 1) felt food namesake. They are supposed to be shaped like ice cubes, as the originals were in 2001. Shannon's "Bowling Alley Boogie" Jell-O Shots.

Totally classy, right?