Sustainable Fabric Food Covers

I bought my friend Annemarie the Farm Chicks Cookbook for her birthday. It's cute-- country recipes with crafty projects thrown in. The recipes are a little sweeter than I like (lots of desserts) but are fresh and seasonal. The crafts are all made with thrifted materials which I really appreciate! One of the projects is for sustainable food covers. Since I like to toss in something handmade with gifts (when I get the chance...) I decided to sew some up. I dug into my stash of 30's reproduction fabrics (all thrifted, I might add) and used a set of nesting bowls as pattern to cut out circles. Then I serged the edges (SOOOOOO in love with my 2nd hand serger right now-- thanks Jennifer!) and sewed on 1/4 inch elastic-- pulling it as I sewed to create the elastic sides. I tried them on different bowls with and without lips and they work great! I'm definitely going to make some for myself. I'm a stickler about sealing food up in the fridge so I'm not sure how these will fare but I was thinking they could be used for things I might leave open in the fridge anyway, like washed grapes or food I've prepped for dinner or maybe when we eat outside.

To recap:
1. cut out circles of different sizes
2. serge the edges if you can, or leave them to be pinked after the elastic is on.
3. sew on 1/4" elastic and PULL as you sew
4. pink the edges if you haven't serged them
5. enjoy!

Thrifted, $3.99

This bowl is quite big-- definitely enough to serve a small salad for 4. I'm in love with it. My purpose in going to the thrift store was to buy some serving dishes I could bring when we have dinner with friends and then leave them as a hostess gift. The problem is that I have bought three or four new dishes and I've fallen in love with all of them. This one just makes me smile.

Vintage Bed Sheet Lounge Pants

Picked up a really soft king-sized bed sheet at the thrift store. Used a pair of pj pants as a pattern and sewed this up extra quick. I've sewn with bed sheets often and find that they always come out of the wash wrinkle free. I don't know what the content of the fabric is but it's a definite bonus. Also, working with sheets is great because the sides are usually pre-hemmed. I offered to make Talia a matching pair and she rolled her eyes at me. I thought maybe the butterflies would be enough to get her attention but obviously, they are NOT her color. She wants a pair-- just not these. Hoping to get some sewing done over the Thanksgiving weekend. Likelihood... low.

Thirft Store Find

Sweetest little homemade dress for Talia. It's pretty short but that makes it even cuter. She loves it.

Growing Up

I can't believe my baby is going to be 4 on Tuesday. She is definitely growing up. She's trying new things-- we made English Muffin Pizzas yesterday with veggie pepperoni. She didn't really like them (although she loves veggie pepperoni... but, come on, who doesn't?) but she was excited to try them. She's also expanding her mind to include things like wearing pants and colors other than pink. The other day she said, "I'm not that into princesses anymore." So I asked her what she was into and she said, "my brother" which is true. Ten minutes later she wanted to play Ariel of course but she's slowing down a little bit. She says, "I don't like pink anymore, I like blue." I'm trying to teach her that she can like pink AND blue, princesses and other things too.

Another thing she's been doing is fibbing a bit here and there. At first it was to avoid trouble, like when I ask her if her panties are a little bit wet when she has to go potty. She'll say "no but don't come feel them." Or if I ask her if she had one glass of milk or two she might say one when it was really two (I know we're crazy to limit her milk but she would drink two gallons a day and never eat any food!). Last night I was busy with Alex and she wanted dessert. I asked her if she finished her dinner and she said yes and I didn't believe her. She had totally finished it. I never really anticipated this fibbing issue so I haven't really thought about how to handle it. It's really only come up in the last week or two. I have to figure out a response that I can be consistent about... and soon!

$2.50

That's right-- for less than $3 I got a hand-pieced quilt top to add to my collection.

$12.50

I've been going to garage sales on Friday mornings after I drop T at school. I'm really just looking for another exersaucer for the basement. By the time I find one Alex will have grown out of it already. I just go on Craigslist, pick out a few sales that say "kids' stuff" and are in my area and then plug the addresses into my GPS. I *love* GPS! Anyway, I saw one that said "many quilts" so I added it to my list. When I got there I noticed a very determined looking woman had just gotten out of her car and was heading up the driveway. She literally SNATCHED a handmade double wedding ring quilt ($20) out from under me. She also took another one I wanted. I overheard her saying she wants to use them to practice her machine free-quilting (Not a bad idea actually). I got this fantastic 1970's polyester blend material quilt. It is very much "of an era!" There are some really wild prints. It's huge-- at least a queen size. I don't know what kind of batting was used but this quilt weighs about a million pounds. The back looks like it might be a floral bed sheet with light blue strips attached to each side. It is machine pieced and hand quilted in diagonal rows (each square has an "X" quilted in it). $12.50, I'm thrilled! I also got about 20 hand embroidered hankies and dishtowels ($0.50 each). I hope to piece them together... someday. At another sale I got a bunch of clothes for Alex including a pair of 80's white overalls with red, blue, green and yellow airplanes on them. I also got a yellow fireman/ policeman jacket for $1 that I gave to T's class. Those kids LOVE firefighters.