Placemats

We are headed into Seattle this weekend as John is running the Lake Sammamish Half Marathon (which he last ran 2 years ago when I threw his 70th birthday surprise party).   We are staying at our friends house where I hosted the birthday brunch that year.  I wanted to take her a small gift to say thanks ... and found a lovely placemats with a tutorial on Pinterest from Coop Crafts.

Quilted patchwork placemats

While they are easy to make ... I would add that it did take about 2 hours per placemat ... so not quite as simple as I guess I had anticipated ... but what a great scrap buster!

I did the packs in coordinating prints that matched the color theme from the front of each.  Perhaps the one thing I would have done differently is to have done the backs all in the same print so that they would be reversible ...

Using Sarah's tutorial ... I started by mining the scrap bin for 2.5" or larger pieces.  

Then I created 4 different color pallets ... her 3-year-old daughter must have everything pink ... so, of course, that was one of the color pallets that I chose.  I did mine a bit more random that Sarah did hers as I suspect my color assortment wasn't as well stocked.

Her table is round, so I deviated from Sarah's plan and created a cardboard template from an oval placemat that I had.

I then used the template to mark and cut the placemats into 4 equal ovals.

I used a black and white pin stripe as a neutral binding on the four, first cutting the binding on the bias using this tutorial and cutting the strips 2.25".  I was a bit nervous, but with a little clipping at the curves, it actually went on quite evenly AND easily.

I will definitely make them again ... but perhaps allow a little more time ;-)

Hope all is well with you and yours ...

All the best,
Lisa