Football Baby Blanket

I mentioned that my husband's Eagles jersey got messed up in the laundry? Well, it did. Has a bunch of holes in the backside.

Luckily it was a knockoff anyway and didn't cost very much money. Still, he'd only worn it a couple of times and wanted to recycle it into something else.

So voila. A baby blanket. I'll go through the steps on how I made this sucker. There's not detailed instructions, but if you wanted to recreate it, I think you can follow along.

Actually, I ended up making two blankets. One for my expected son and one for my cousin's brand new baby boy. Only because the jersey had numbers on the front and back. I also got the fleece 30% off and the minky fabric 50% off.

Materials to make 2 blankets:
2 yds fleece
1 yd minky
scrap white fabric
70-80 inches of grosgrain or satin ribbon
green, white, and brown thread

First, wash everything in baby detergent. I use Dreft. Then cut out the numbers from the jersey.

I also used this opportunity to cut all the patches and other decals from the Jersey. Like the two eagles on each sleeve, the NFL logo, and whatever else was attached to the jersey. I could embellish a bib later on.

Square up your two yards of fleece and fold into quarters. Cut along the folds. By square up, I mean make sure they are all equal sizes. Cut off the salvages and cut straight edges. It helps to have a large self healing mat and rotary cutter to do this.

Once I have the blanket squared off (which is kind of a pain in the ass), I mark the corners with color coded pins. That way I know it's supposed to be the upper left corner of the blanket and don't accidentally flip it sideways sew it wrong.

Find the middle of the blanket and pin the numbers on. Fold the raw edges under. You could use an iron here, but I was concerned about the heat and the jersey melting. Sew it on with either a straight stitch or zig zag. Just make sure you are sewing it to the RIGHT side of the fabric.

Next, get a piece of cardboard. Or not, if you are capable of doing this freestyle. More power to you. I needed a pattern. I measured the blanket and used pins to indicate where I wanted the football to be. I measured the vertical distance between the pins and drew a line on the cardboard. The curved line of the football was a little trickier. I found something in my house that was flexible and used it to trace the arc. It happened to be a piece of garden edging that we bought but never installed. When you're done, you should have a semi-circle of cardboard that fits your fleece.

Take the minky fabric - remember I'm making two blankets here. I folded it in half, then folded it along the length, just wider than the semicircle. Put the straight edge of the cardboard alongside the fold. Cut.

You should have two football shapes.

Take some white fabric and cut two inch strips. 

Fold the raw edges to the center and iron flat. 

I eyeballed the next part. I folded the raw edges of the minky fabric under and pinned in place. Then I lined up where I wanted the white stripes to be. No measuring, just guess and check until I was happy with it. Those got pinned into place.

Sew the white strips onto the minky fabric. Straight stitch or zig zag would work. If I were doing this project again, I would've reinforced the white strips with fusible web. They would've been more easy to place, pin, and sew if they were stiffer.

Sew the football onto the blanket.

Cut 6 inch long pieces of ribbon. I don't know how many you'll need. You can space these out as you wish. I found that anywhere from 4-8 inches apart looked nice. These are just going to be tabs the baby can play with. Pin them to the fabric wherever you want. If your ribbon has words or a pattern on it like mine, make sure the pattern goes in the same direction as the pattern on the fleece.

 Stitch the sides up. Here's the front:

 Here's the back.

How to make spaghetti sauce

Spaghetti sauce! Without the preservatives! Something to do with all those tomatoes in the garden! A way to pass 3 hours of  your life!

This was our first time making and canning spaghetti sauce. It took us 3 hours, but we might be able to cut that down to 2.5 hours once we get faster.

The $2.99 jar of Ragu sounds like a good deal, doesn't it?

I read that roma tomatoes are the best to use, but we didn't plant those. Oh well.

First step, bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Drop a few tomatoes in there. Watch them closely. In about 30 seconds to 1 minute, the peel will start to split. 

Take it out of the pot and drop it into some ice water. This is so you can touch the tomato without burning yourself.

 Take it out of the water after a minute. The tomato should peel very easily.

 Cut off the top, or stem. Slice the tomato in half. HALF! Not lengthwise. If the tomato was a globe, don't cut pole-to-pole. Cut the hemisphere. Make sense?

 This should expose the seeds.

 Squeeze the tomato in your hand to dump the seeds. Scoop out the rest. You don't have to get all of them.

 Do ALL the tomatoes. Put them in a colander to drain.











Chop mushrooms, green pepper, and onion.

Saute them in olive oil.

 Put the tomatoes in a food processor to make them into a liquid.

 Drain some of the chunks out of the liquid.

 Put it in a pot.

Drain the veggies too.

Add them to the pot. Add whatever spices you want. We also put in a can of tomato paste - the only ingredient that didn't come from the garden or farm share. Let this simmer for a long time. Probably about 2 hours.

Meanwhile you can sterilize the jars. Place them in near boiling water for 10 minutes. Don't forget the lids too. Wash the bands in soapy water.

When that's done, turn them upside down on a towel.

Fill the jars with sauce about 1/4 inch from the top of the jar.

Put the bands on.

Put the jars back into the boiling water for 30 minutes.

Label!

How to Can Banana Peppers

The hubby likes pickled banana peppers on his sandwiches. He likes them so much, he planted several plants in the garden this year, bought canning supplies, and looked up how to do it. 

I personally don't care for them, but figured it was something we could learn how to do together. 

BTW, the orange one is spicy. Pick them after they turned yellow, and are just starting to turn orange at the top. You don't need a lot of peppers. This is enough for a pint and half, but we only made one pint.

So here we go, picture-by-picture instructions on how to can banana peppers. Of course, we haven't opened the jar yet to actually taste this. The recipe got 5 stars on food.com so how bad can it be?

First you have to sanitize the jars and lids. To do this, put them in a water bath for 10 minutes in water that just barely under a boil. Be careful, these jars are crazy hot. We were doing tomatoes at the same time, which is why there are 4 jars in the pot.

Cut the tops off the peppers. Leave the seeds for now.

Use a food processor to slice the peppers very thinly.

Wash the seeds out the best you can.

Mix 2 cups vinegar, 2/3 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds, and 1/2 teaspoon celery seeds in a pot and boil it. (we didn't have celery seed and used salt instead.)

Your jars should be about ready. Remove them carefully from the pot and set them upside down on a towel. We bought special canning tongs to do this. Seriously hot.

Use a funnel to add the peppers and the liquid. Fill the jar about 1/4 inch from the top.

 Put the lid and the band on the jar and place it back into the boiling water for 30 minutes. Make sure the water covers the jar.

Label your jar.

Done!!

How to make a collar

I made this video. Enjoy!