Whew, the last few weeks I have been sewing and quilting deprived as I worked on my big, fat project which I disclosed to you on my last post.  But this week I have been sewing up a storm and enjoying every minute of it.

 

When we had a quilt shop several years ago, I carried a lot of Debbie Mumm material and quilting books.  I have a lot of them myself.  This is one of them. See that cute Tea quilt in the background?  I have wanted to make it for years, but the time never seemed right.

 

This is the one that was in the book.  I like the colors, but I had a Valentine type one in mind.  I have some fabric called Pamkitty and Pamkitty Love that I have used in several projects. I love the colors in these fabrics.  So bright and cheerful.  So that is what I used in the first quilt picture in the blog.  I haven’t quilted it yet, so will show you when it is completed.

 

This is a block from a small quilt I started this afternoon.  I am just designing it as I go along.  This is Pamkitty Love material also.  It is so vintage looking.  I hope I get it done before Valentine’s Day.

 

I have been doing some baking also.  I made a yellow cake this week.  I used a box cake mix, gasp.  Really, I like a yellow cake made from a box mix rather than from scratch.  When I was growing up, I made so many yellow cakes.  There was one called the one, two, three, four cake, I don’t know why now, but I made them all the time.  My mother made everything from scratch.  No cutting corners with her.  When I discovered box cakes after I was married I very seldom made cakes from scratch until lately again. Anyway, I didn’t want to put icing on it so I beat up some whipping cream with a little sugar and a couple of tablespoons of homemade strawberry preserves.

 

Added a couple of drops of food coloring to make it pretty.  Left a little on the beaters to lick.  Did I say a little?  Hmmmm.

 

Put a small dollop on a piece of cake.  Did I say a small dollop?  Let’s just say I like a little cake with my whipped cream.  It was so good.

 

Add a dollop to a cup of coffee and oh, man, you have died and gone to heaven.  And you tell yourself you better walk an extra mile today.

 

Now for my tutorial.  Have you ever looked for a pretty ironing board cover?  I never can find one I like.  When Martha Stewart was in Kmart, she had some pretty ones once in a while and I have ordered Laura Ashley ironing board covers from Amazon.  Lately, there is a dearth of pretty ironing board covers.  I saw a homemade one on a blog I read and thought to myself, “Self, you can make one of those.”  So I set right in to trying it.   First I made a quilt big enough to fit my ironing board.  You could use an old quilt if you have one around you don’t mind cutting up.

Next I taped several sheets of newspaper together to make the pattern.

 

If you have a husband or any man will do, you will have him turn your ironing board upside down on the newspaper and draw around it with a fine point marker.   I then marked an extra three and a quarter inches to the pattern for the lip of the ironing board and a one inch turn under.

If I make another one, I will add an extra inch to work with because my cover just fit the board. That would be an extra four and a quarter inches.

 

Next I turned under a one inch casing for elastic. See that pretty flowered backing I have on  the back of my quilted cover?  That’s from a sheet I got at a garage sale for one dollar.  Can’t beat that.  I didn’t turn under the raw edge as my quilt had been made with heavier batting than I would generally use for this, but it was what I had on hand at the moment and I couldn’t wait to go buy some more. This edge won’t show anyway, so it’s really not a problem.

 

Next you measure around your ironing board to cut your elastic.  I just taped one end to the board and walked around the board holding the elastic until the two ends of the elastic met and I cut it then.  It took over three yards.

 

I mark both ends of the elastic so I will match the right sides when I sew them together.  Using a safety pin, run the elastic through the casing.  This is where it gets a little hard.  If you don’t have a lot of hand strength, which I don’t, your hands become very tired trying to get the elastic to run through.  I enlisted my good husband and it took us both to pull and tug the elastic, but we finally got it done.  I am thinking of another, easier way to put in the elastic, but I’ll tell you about it when I make another cover.

 

This is not the finished product because I forgot to take a picture of it.  Suffice it to say, it fit beautifully and stays on better than the store bought covers.  I plan to make more in many colors because I do a lot of ironing and like to do it on pretty covers.

 

This is what my old  cover looks like and see, it doesn’t stay on very well.  I find that often with store bought covers.  No matter how much you stretch them and work with them, they just don’t fit your ironing board very well.  If you like making things like this, it is a fun, easy project.  I had it completed in a couple of days and I was working on my quilt during that time also.

It’s the month of love, so love the one you’re with, find someone to love, love your dog, cat or rabbit or just love your neighbor as yourself.  Bye.