placemats

i've been thinking about what to make my boyfriend's mom for christmas, and upon seeing alissa's placemats on one of my favorite blogs, handmade by alissa, i knew they'd be the golden ticket. since there were a few days between her posting of the images of the finished products, and her posting of the actual pattern, i tried my hand at improvising. let me tell you... it was a disaster.

it is going to take some time for me to wrap my brain around cutting and piecing and cutting through that to add more material, and cutting it in a different direction to watch it grow by another stripe. when i tried it myself, it didn't dawn on me to work this way. instead, i measured the size of each block or strip, cut them out, and put them together like a puzzle. know what i mean? i didn't realize till the end that i'd totally forgotten about seam allowances!

anyway, i gave up on my version, and once alissa posted the pattern, i went for it!

i used a nice brown linen for the main fabric, and kept it simple with muslin and a camel cotton. i decided neutral was the way to go.

this was really my first time quilting! not perfect, but i like the handmade-ness of the semi-crooked lines.

trimming the finished product.

i found these little personalized tags at the fabric store, although i'd like to design my own tag at some point, it worked in a pinch.

somehow i ended up with 4 right-striped placemats, and 2 left-sided mirror images. i'll bet it has something to do with a manufacturer malfunction, i'm just not quite sure how i managed that!

i haven't jumped into making the binding yet, but i'm thinking about using the bright flower burst material to add some color and contrast. i also don't want the placemats to end up looking too 70's brown. what do you think?

i'm putting the binding off at the moment because i'm trying to finish up the quilt i started a week or so ago. it has to be ready to go on thursday, and i'm about to start quilting it now. more pictures soon.