On a little roll

Nothing like my back to school frenzies when I had 5 little kids, but still fairly prolific for me these days.  The baby quilt is almost done, just binding and getting his name and birth date (8/21/13!) on there.  It's ions away from where I want to be as far as quilting, but all things considered I'm fairly pleased.

I took a peak into my old stash cupboard downstairs and  found some goodies.  Four cute Halloween prints and one cut out scrub pattern (1998?) from when I was going to sew up holiday scrubs for the team.  I think I got the doc's done and then staffing went to hell and we were all doing 6 doubles then a day off for a few months. One Christmas print snuck in the pile.  I decided to go ahead and finish the cut scrub, though I thought it would be too small for me and too large for my nurse daughter.  It fits great!

I didn't pull out the instructions, and as I have long suspected construction seemed more pleasant without them.  It's not as if it were my first or second or even tenth top I've made.  My sweet Ethyl machine has no free arm so I hemmed the sleeves before the final seam.  It also won't take a double needle, so double top stitching had to be by eye.  I probably will never make another except maybe for little kids or dolls because for the cost of the fabric it's cheaper to buy ready made most of the time.  This was already cut and the fabric is pretty cute for Halloween- seasonal but not big huge overpowering motifs.


Happy little Frankenstein heads with sunny yellow bats.

I also made a very fast new ironing board cover.  I like having it covered with a fabric that makes me happy, and this one does.  Found it a Walmart, surprised to feel that it was a little heavier than quilting cottons and looks to be very durable.

 

 

It was also very inexpensive, I'm thinking about $5 a yard.  I bought 1 1/2 and it was enough length to cover the board in one piece.  I layed it over the board and cut around with a 2 1/2 inch drop.  Turned up one narrow hem and stitched.  Marked where it starts to narrow on both sides, turned it over one more time and zig zagged stretched elastic on top of the folded hem.  I stitched a length of string into the fold below the elastic on both sides, securing it at the start point with several back and forth stitches and then encased it along the fold as I stitched down the hem.  The string exits the bottom for drawstring ties.  I folded twice at the bottom over another piece of string and left the very ends unstitched for the draw ties to exit there.  Pull it up, tie, it's on.  I could have elasticized the whole thing but couldn't find enough skinny elastic.

 

 

 

I have made (or purchased) several board covers through the years that I liked, only to stain or singe them promptly.  I had a fair amount of fabric left and decided to make a little cover to lay down when I am pressing lots of pieces.  It's cockeyed here to show what size I went with, I keep it flat on the board and you don't really see it's there.  It will be easier to just throw into the wash as needed than stripping off the entire cover, and hopefully this will stay pretty for most of a year.

 

I have some bias strip making to do.  And some baby photos to take!