Look what I made today!

Can you tell what it is???

 It's made out of heavy trigger cloth, and I doubled the fabric so it's even stronger. It needs to be strong, because it carries a heavy load.

 Can you see something peeking through the drawstring hole?

 Aha! It's a Dutch oven carrier! Such a great idea. I saw one in another family's gear when we were camping at Sparks Lake last week, and I vowed to come home and make one of my own. It makes it so much easier to carry a (cold) Dutch oven and best of all, the soot on the outside of the Dutch oven won't get all over my clothes or my car or my other camping gear.

 Here's a side view. It shows how the heavy-duty straps go all the way under the bottom before they turn into carrying handles on the sides.

 Here's the bottom view. I made the circle for the bottom by tracing the Dutch oven lid and adding a little for seam allowance. Then I measured how tall to make the sides: as tall as the Dutch oven + enough extra to gather in at the top with the drawstring.

Here's another cool little project that I made today:

Place mats for the Church nursery! They're about 12" square. They are made out of the tablecloth fabric you can buy off the bolt. I just folded them in half (right sides together), sewed around two sides, turned them right side out, and topstitched around all four sides. Easy peasy. We've been using napkins as a place to put the children's food during snack time, but we can reuse these - they'll wipe off so easily. If you try to make these, be careful when turning them right side out. You have to be gentle, or the fabric will tear along the stitching line. Can you tell I'm speaking from experience?