Placemat Project

I sewed like crazy the last four days because it was the last few days of my vacation. I really tried very hard to feel like I was glad to be back at work today, but I really wasn't! I'm taking another week off in October, so I have that to look forward to, and that will be my last vacation period this year.

Mostly I worked on the pieced border for Koleen's quilt; but after working with all those half square triangle units for nearly a week, I was ready to take a break and work on something else.

On Friday at our bimonthly sewing get-together at Kay's, our friend Helen was working on some placemats. We all liked them, and so after some discussion Kay and Janice and I decided to get together Sunday afternoon and make some placemats of our own. I never left Kay's until nearly 11:00 that night, so I missed my Sunday Stash Report and everything. I'll catch up with that next week.

The placemats were quick and easy to cut out; and they sewed up pretty quickly too, once we figured out what we were doing. The pattern called for muslin inside instead of batting; but we used flannel, which gave the mat a little extra body, but not enough to cause a glass to rock on it. I haven't added the backing and binding yet, but I got three mats made and one more cut out. We thought these would make great gifts, and there's an endless number of novelty fabrics or other prints you could use for these. They were a nice little stashbuster too--about 1/2 yard for each mat. I wish I had enough lobster fabric left to make a tablerunner; but I don't, so I might have to try to find some other little lobster related item to give with the placemats as a giftie.

Janice made hers from Christmas fabrics, which was very attractive. Kay made one for each of her grandchildren, using the same fabrics she'd used in bloomers she made for them last week, and they were just adorable. I wish I'd thought to bring my camera to get a few photos. For one of Kay's mats, she used two different accent fabrics instead of one. It occurred to me that you could also make a set of four mats, two mats in one color combination, and the other two reversing the two colors. Or you could change the shape and make the mat more square. Or longer, for a tablerunner. Or.... gee, lots of possibilities for these!