Thursday, December 31, 2015

DIY Christmas - placemats and table runner for Mom

After completing the baby quilt for my cousin's baby, I wanted another project to work on.  So I grabbed a jelly roll that a coworker gave me for my birthday (Daysail by Bonnie & Camille), picked out the predominantly aqua strips, plus a few more coordinating strips, and got to work.

I used the idea of the jelly roll race, which was how I sewed the fabric for the baby quilt, but stopped when it was 6 strips tall.  I then cut strips varying widths, and sewed them together with white fabric framing them; this was to make the table runner.

I saw a picture on Pinterest where a decorative stitch was used in between the different fabrics, so I decided to do this for the placemats.  I made the placemat fabrics diagonal, from corner to corner, which works well because Mom can turn them upside down or right side up (there really is no right side up, actually), depending on what fabrics she prefers at the bottom.  I selected 4 different stitches, and quickly ran out of my red thread while sewing the placemats.


That's when I wished I had more thread at my disposal and wished we were closer to stores.  I have a feeling I will now and forever more overbuy on thread each time I buy fabric...

I really like the look of scrappy binding, so that's what I made, trying to use the rest of the strips of the jelly roll that wouldn't look too out of place.  I also had some shorter pieces of the fabric I did use, so there are parts of the binding where the fabric changes after about 4 inches.  I like the look, and I enjoyed adding the binding.  It just might be my favorite part of quilting...


Even though I would not normally give Mom something where red is a prominent accent color, I do think with all the aqua, sail boats, and flowers, they will be just Florida-y enough to move into regular rotation in the placemat cabinet at their house...

  

And Loretta - don't look at them too closely the next time you're visiting my folks....  stand about 15 feet away, take off your glasses or take out your contacts, then look at them, ok?

photo provided by Mom


Linking to 

3 comments: