Last Minute Christmas Gift

Last weekend my husband informed me that he thinks we'll go up to see his family for Christmas after all.  Yikes, that means lots of Christmas Present shopping!

He has one sister that is very hard to shop for, since she already has everything.  I decided to make her this cute casserole cover.  I got almost done on Friday night as part of the last Friday Night Sew-In for the year.



I'm so thankful for Heidi and Bobbi for such a fun idea!

Here's what my casserole cover will be.  It still needs the binding and to be sewn together, which I hope to get done today.  If I do, this one will go in a box to another relative tomorrow and I'll make a second one for the sister it was originally intended for.

This pattern was so supper easy.  I cut a jelly roll that my LQS had made up into 16" strips.  It worked really well that the jelly roll had 4 strips of 8 different fabrics.  I sewed the 18" strips together offset and then cut two 14" by 32" rectangles out of them.  I lined them with leftover backing and used the green print for the backs which will be the inside of the dish.  All you need to do then once they are bound is create a cross and sew them together in the middle.  The end result comes out looking like this.

It's going to end up a lot larger than I expected and should easily fit around a 9" x 13" casserole dish.  The pattern doesn't have handles, but I think I'm going to add them since we always have our hands full on the way to a potluck, right?

I got the pattern out of this book, Turning Strips & Squares Into Table Sets.

I do have to give credit to Canuck Quilter who gave me this great idea.  She made a darling casserole carrier last week that was the inspiration for this gift idea.  You can see hers on her blog.  Hers looks simple too and I love her fabric choices!