Silk Placemats

Good morning! I have a totally quiet house right now. DH is off at camp. Baby G stayed up way late with the babysitter last night and is down for the count now. Perfect time to plan out my week and post my newest sewing tutorial. Yay!

I've been stitching like a mad women recently, but no projects that would post well. For instance, do you want to read about the 15 cloth diapers I've sewn?! Probably not. This weekend was different.

If you got married, say last night, then skip this post until you've opened your gifts. Otherwise... I needed a wedding gift for a neat couple who've traveled, particularly in southeast Asia. I wanted to make something Asian inspired but not shamelessly copied. I settled on silk placemats.

The placemats were fun from beginning to end. I got to buy bright colored fabric; I didn't have to use any funky stitching; as an added bonus, my sewing machine tension behaved itself. And the result was a gift I could be proud to put our name on.

How to Sew a Placemat:

Note - This tutorial is specific to working with a light weight fabric such as silk. If you want to use a heavier fabric, like broadcloth, I would follow this tutorial at SewMamaSew.

1. Start with a trip to the fabric store (yay!). To make 4 placemats at 14"x17", I bought 3/4 yard of backing and single-sided fusible webbing and 1/4 yard of each of the front panel fabrics (3 total fabrics for 3/4 yard total). Also, you will need double fold bias tape and corresponding thread.

2. Cut the pieces for your front panel. Before you cut, decide how big you want the placemat. As I said, these were 14"x17" which will comfortably house a large dinner plate. The front panel can be as complicated or simple as you like. Regardless, consider your seam allowance when you calculate the front pieces. In this case, I had two seams at 1/2" per piece of fabric for a total of 2" seam allowance. The center strip was 7"x17", the thin strip was 3.5"x17", and the wider top strip was 5.5"x17".

3. Piece and sew your front panel. You can skip this step if you chose a solid piece for the front. To piece, simply pin the fabric right side to right side and sew a straight seam along the pinned edge at your designated seam allowance.

4. Iron the pieced seams. The seams must lay flat, otherwise you will have odd ridges in your placemat.

5. Cut and iron fusible webbing. The webbing gives the placemats structure without adding a lot of bulk. The webbing should wrinkle slightly when it's warm enough to bond. If the webbing isn't sticking, turn up the heat on the iron.

6. Trim the placemat. With the webbing in place, straight cuts become much easier. This is the time to square things up and ensure that all of your front pieces reach the edge of the placemat.

7. Attach backing and and bias. Pin the backing on first. At this point, you can trim the backing to ensure a good fit with the front of the placemat. Then pin the double fold bias tap around the outside edge, making sure to fold and pin the corners as you go. When sewing, use a straight stitch positioned as close to the inside edge of the bias tape as possible. This will ensure that you get a big bite of all three layers of fabric and that your bias tape doesn't fold up or roll later.

Ta Da. You're done. 

I really enjoyed making these. Throughout the process, I kept thinking about what I wanted to do when I made some for us. I think I have a pretty cute idea coming up. Can't wait to show you. In the mean time, try sewing some silk placemats. They can really spruce up your table setting or make an excellent shower/wedding present.

Pancakes

My mom started a tradition (many moons ago) making pancakes for breakfast every Saturday. It stuck, although each daughter has adjusted it slightly. Emily's a waffle woman, Sarah is a biscuit maker, and I make on Friday, the start of the weekend if you're a pastor's family.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and pancakes are one of my specialities. This morning, we had buttermilk buckwheat pancakes with blueberries. They were fabulous. As you might imagine, I make them from scratch. I'm not opposed to Bisquick; I just prefer the flexibility of flour, sugar and baking soda.

The Recipe:

4 T butter, melted
1 1/2 c milk
2 eggs
Beat together.

2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
2 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
Mix together with a fork, beating as little as possible. Cook on a greased skillet over medium heat, turning once. Keep warm and serve hot.

In general, people make two common mistakes with pancakes. 1. They over mix the batter and try to remove all the lumps. This makes the pancakes tough/rubbery. Even pressing pancakes with a spatula increases toughness. 2. They set the stove too high, overcooking the outside and leaving the inside runny. You wouldn't crank the oven up to 425 to bake bread faster. The pancakes are baking just like any other quick bread, and they deserve the correct temperature.

Like most doughs/batters, once you've made this recipe a few times, you should get a feel for the consistency and how to adjust or add to it. My favorite adjustments:

• Whole wheat and/or buckwheat flour instead of all-purpose - requires an extra 1/4 - 1/2 c milk. This makes very filling pancakes.
• 1 t vanilla
• 1-2 c fruit - bananas, shredded apples, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc...
• 1/2-1 t cinnamon - I really like cinnamon, so I use a lot
• 1 c chocolate chips or chopped nuts
• 1/4 c wheat bran or 1/4 c rolled oats - again, you must increase the liquid
• Buttermilk instead of milk - this makes your pancakes fluffier. You can make buttermilk by adding 1 T of lemon juice per 1 c of milk. 
• 1 c mashed sweet potatoes - remove 1 c of flour, add cinnamon and nutmeg. These are delicious!

Feel free to be creative. I'm considering adding cheese and layering them for a dinner dish, in the spirit of crepes. I made crepes a little while back from The Art of French Cooking. Tim was nuts about them, but they were a little intense to make. Adding extra liquid to pancake batter would achieve roughly the same thing. Hmm...


Bon Appétit!

Recovering from my laundry Faux Pas

I was going to report on this yesterday as a follow up to my laundry gripe, but my dress was just too exciting, so I postponed.

We really piled on the stressors in our life this year: baby, move, new job, new church, selling a house. Usually I can shove my problems to a dark recess of my mind and focus on daily life stuff. Nevertheless, they creep forward at times, reminding me that our house still hasn't sold, isn't even showing in fact, that we're still living in a borrowed house that really needs to be sold. Ugh! That's why I try to bury these nagging thoughts under piles of baby giggles and craft ideas.

Whenever I start stewing over the glacial housing market, I try to distract myself. First, I sat down and read the Bible. However, I'm in a section right now that's mostly genealogies. All of those weird interesting names pass in front of me, and my worrying shifts from the house to the baby. This baby had better be a girl if it wants a name. I am totally uninspired by boys' names this go around.

I needed to find something else to distract me, so I pulled out the stained tees and the Rit. One pot led to 3 with 1 burp cloth, 2 tees and 4 onesies - cobalt blue, tangerine orange and grass green. Rit offers formulas for creating different shades. The website is useful, if you have all of the base colors you need.

Speaking of what colors you "need," the Color Kittens are deceiving! You cannot make any color of paint/dye out of a combination of red, yellow and blue. On the color wheel, it works, but in practice, it's a mess. You need brown and black to fine tune colors (For instance, gold = yellow and brown, burgundy = red and black, maroon = red and brown). If you are going to buy a set of basic primary colors and hope to mix the shades you want, make sure you buy a brown and a black also. I forgot this rule when I bought my dye, so picking exact colors was difficult.

All the same, I really enjoyed seeing Baby G in a bright hugh. Her wardrobe is drowning in pink and brown with flowers. Time for a change.

After dress sewing yesterday, I'm not up for a huge project today. Still, I think I could find some cute shapes (not flowers or ducks) to add to these onesies. I now have three green ones so it might be time for a fruit/veggie theme. And the orange one is begging for a tree. Hmm... looks like I found today's project.

New Dress

This weekend, I'm attending a wedding. It's the kind of wedding I really look forward to: family I love, sweet bride, I'm not part of the bridal party/family. Best of all, they're a Godly couple, so the imagery of Christ and the church really stands out.

While I'm excited to go, I had one major hiccup. It's been over a year since any of my formal clothes fit. I have one "maternity" dress, and it looks like a sack, an awkward mauve tent. Not exactly the statement I want to make at this beautiful evening wedding.

After a vision of sixteen outfit changes only to give up and where jeans, I started looking for something new. I found this dress. It's beautiful, sexy, slimming - everything a maternity dress should be. Did you check the price? Yeah, a hundred dollars. I think Tim could take me to small claims court if I spent that on a dress right now. After all, we have a new baby to pay for.

So, I did what any crafty momma does when she can't buy the dress she wants. I headed to the store for fabric to make my version of the dress. To hide pregnant awkwardness and cope with summer heat, I picked a rayon/lycra blend. Unable to find a pattern, I drew out a ridiculous sketch, scrutinized a couple dresses in my closet and started cutting.

To be honest, I surprised myself. The dress is a faux wrap (I don't need G untying my dress) accented with cap sleeves and a ruffled neck line. The belt actually ties at the side. The hanger is lame, I know. I promise to take a picture when I wear it Saturday. Also, I will try to make a digital pattern available.

Trying this dress on, I felt prettier than I have in months. Now, I really can't wait for this wedding.