Oh baby there is an ill wind blowing, can you feel it, just seeping through the door jams and window sills. And while it's chilly in here, I can only imagine how down right cold it's going to be feeling in my buddy Tom Delay's jail cell. Poor Tom went from being the big shot in the house to being a little man in the big house for conspiracy and money laundering. Since making an insulating cushion was the project theme for this week's Iron Craft Challenge, I thought I'd whip up a little going away present for my favorite felonious former Speaker of the House.

For the outer shell I used the sleeves of a left over prison uniform sweater, something I just happened to have at the bottom of my laundry basket. I stitched the two arms together at the pit joint and sewed one long end closed. I filled the cushion with pinto beans raided from my stash in the nuclear fall-out shelter and sewed the other end up. My project was cute enough but to keep pace with the quality work being done by the other Iron Crafters, I'd have to step it up a notch... A prison i.d. patch seemed just the right touch... so who's number did I use? None other than M. Diddy's, the patron saint of criminal crafters , the ultimate irony being that I used her super expensive silicon hand stamps to create the badge. Classy right, and it seemed like the perfect thing to make Tom feel at home in his new digs.

As an added bonus the cushion weighs about 30 pounds so if he needs a kosh for self defense he is set and in some kind of lock down scenario he's got the makings of a pretty substantial meal, if some kind soul gives him access to a coffee maker... good luck Tom!