Catching up

It's been sewing world around here, so it seemed like I should write a little update on what I've been working on ... check off that list!

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a link via Facebook to this tutorial, saying it looked like something I'd make. And she was right.

Now that B's eating so much table food, I kept thinking it would be nice to have some sort of place mat so he's not eating straight off the table when we go out. I wanted to try to make it a bit "sticky" on the back so it would be harder for him to pull off the table, so I replaced the back fabric with a piece of shelf liner. I'm not sure how well it's going to work (we've only tried it once so far, with mixed results), but we'll see. If nothing else, it's cute and gives him something to look at.

I also subbed out an elastic band for the ties to keep it closed when it's rolled up. Gwenny Penny's tutorial is well written, and this came together in no time. Let's eat!

The other day, I was at Cotton Babies picking up some new diapers for B, and they had a box filled with goodies you could choose from if you spent over a certain amount. I picked out a set of bibs that were packaged in these cute little plastic baby food jars.

After removing the bibs, I immediately decided they'd make perfect shakers for B, after a little makeover, of course.

I sewed two little sleeves, slid them on, filled one with rice and one with black beans, glued on the lids, and voila! Baby shakers!

Lastly (for this post), I finally made Matt a new lunch bag. He'd been making do with a bag from Whole Foods, but after the second one fell apart, he'd been using a plastic bag. Not cool. Enter me and the sewing machine.

I used this tutorial from I Eat Food for the measurements. Putting it together was just a basic tote construction, so easy peasy. It came together in no time, and I really like the way it turned out. Cute and functional but still manly. :)

The fabric is actually a shower curtain from Target that I bought ages ago when I was first starting out and not always making good fabric choices for certain projects. (This fabric was originally purchased to make a pair of yoga pants ... fail.)

Inside, I stashed this awesome little kit I found at Home Goods a few days ago. It's really small but holds this cute set of silverware (spoon, fork, knife, and chopsticks, ha!) and is perfect for a lunch bag.

Matt always had some nasty looking plasticware hanging out in the bottom of his lunch bag, so hopefully this will help solve that problem.

All right, back to the sewing room!