Summer His and Hers Placemats

This week, we were to be inspired to create a quilt by a season or all four seasons.  I selected summer.

I made "His and Hers Placemats" for our camper kitchen table.  The fishing one is for my husband and the blue coneflowers are for me. I can't wait til it is summer again. 

I made a third one for our grandson as he will be spending some time with us at the camper this summer.

I selected a dark brown fabric for the borders for all three of them. I plan to make more before summer.  For this week's quilt challenge I created the "His and Hers Placemats".

I quilted the borders with Wiggle Line Quilting on all three placemats.  I quilted with a small meandering quilting in the main rectangle and the three side squares.

I selected a tan and brown print for the back of all three of them.

I quilted with a dark brown quilting thread on the brown borders and blue and the blue fabric and a cream for the fish and kids fabric,

I had fun taking a few photos with my pretty blue plates.

Then I pulled out a square plate, that I think looked pretty cool on the fish placemat or the His Placemat.

I finished each placemat with a different embroidery stitch on the binding.  A flowery one for mine and a tiny stretch stitch for my husband's placemat and a zigzag stitch on the placemat for my grandson. 

I am teaching a binding class tomorrow in Richland Center, Wisconsin. I call the class:  "All Machine Embroidery Stitched Binding with perfect Mitered Corners".  I will take the placemats as examples for the class on Saturday, along with all my other quilted samples.

Here's how I made my placemats:

Main Fabric: 
        one 11" X 10" rectangle (the 11" side will be horizontal)
        and three 3" X 3" squares

Dark Brown Border fabric:
        two  3" X 1 1/2" strips
        one  10" X 1 1/2" strip
        two  2 1/2" X 14 3/4" strips  (Top and bottom border)
        two  2 1/2" X 19 1/4" strips  (side borders)

The last four border strips can be made longer and wider to make a larger placemat.

Stitch it together in the order of the photos.

I am linking up for Project Quilting over at Kim's Blog - Persimon Dreams for Project Quilting.  Hop over and check out all the quilts for this week's Quilt Challenge.

Another fun Quilt Challenge!

Enjoy your evening!

Marcia

I Love Fabric Scraps!

Especially, if they are blue tiny print fabrics.  Yes, I love fabric scraps!

I bought several bags of fabric scraps from a friend through a fabric destash group on facebook.  They had belonged to her Mother.  I also bought several yards of her fabric too, but I seemed to be most excited about the scraps bags, but as you can see, I don't think Toby was.  He was sleeping and enjoying the sunshine.  I think he is just happy to have me around sorting scraps.

First, I very carefully opened each bag and looked for straight pins.  I only found three pins.

I found old fabric sticker tags and tape on a few and a button. I was told the bags hadn't been opened in several years.  I am sure her Mother saved them, thinking she would use them for something one day.  Just like we all do. Well they came to a good home. I love scraps!
Next, I put all the little scraps in a pillow case.

Tied it up with a big knot.

Washed and dried the pillowcase full of fabric scraps.  

I did not dried it completely.  I like the scraps to be a little damp when I sort them out.  It is easier to flatten them out as I sort.

It may look like a mess to you, but not to me! I sorted it while watching TV one evening.

It is almost like a puzzle.  I sorted the fabric pieces into piles of similar colors.  It covered my whole table.

Here's a closer look at the blues.

After it was all sorted, I cut the pieces into 2 inch squares and 1 1/4 inch squares to use for little 4 patch blocks that end up being 2 inch squares when sewn together.

I laid them out on the table to see how they would look together.  It's scrappy, but I moved them around a bit.  There are, of course, duplicates of many of them and I did not want them together.  It is not all 30's reproduction.  There are some from the 60s and even the 70's. It did not matter to me as I selected all my favorite ones.

I started to sew them together. First in groups of 2 and then in 4 patches of both the tiny ones and the 2 inch squares. I had about ten little 4 patch blocks.

Here's an up close photo of the 4 patch blocks.  See how I worked the little 4 patch blocks into the larger ones.

When I put them together, I kept moving them around and I had already pressed seams in different directions, so I had to move some of the seams to press the other way.  This made the back of the quilt --- not so pretty or not perfect.  That is OK.  It was more important to get the prints in a nice scrappy balance.

I was so excited that it was completed and ready to quilt.  I took a photo with a dinner plate on it --- Pretending like it was done! 

It is four - 4 patch blocks across and  five - 4 patch blocks down.  That is a total of twenty - 4 patch blocks.  Or 80 total squares measuring 1 1/2 inch finished squares including the little tiny 4 patch blocks! I love it!

I free style quilted it on my long arm quilting machine with a small meandering with little tiny hearts. I selected a soft blue thread for the quilting and the binding.

Here's an up close photo of the all machine embroidery stitched binding.  The quilted piece to the left is my table topper that I quilted with small meandering and tiny leaves.

Here's an up close photo of where I stitched my name and the year --- Marcia 2014. It hard to see with all the prints.

I love it with my new blue plate from a local resale shop.

If you look up close at the quilting, you can see the tiny hearts in between the meandering.

You can see it better on the backside of the placemat.

The placemat measures 16 inches by 12 inches.

A full view of the backside of the placemat.

I could use it on either side.

I love it! I know my friend's Mother would be happy to know, I used a few of the blues scraps to display on my table. I plan to cut the rest of the scraps into 2 inch and 1 1/4 inch squares to make more placemats --- someday.  For now, I will just have one special placemat to enjoy on my table.

Looks great with this plate too!

And this old one too.  I don't have matching plates.  I love to have a variety of plates. It makes my table look like a patchwork quilt.

I had breakfast on my new placemat this morning.

And lunch on it too.

I have another blog, where I post photos of pretty food, on pretty plates, on pretty placemats. I named it:  Lunch Looks Like a Quilt to Me!  It's just for fun!

I know it is Friday, but this post is going to be tagged - Sunday's Scraps.  If you click on the tags at the bottom of this post, it will take you to all my posts tagged Sunday's Scraps - but it will start with this post, then keep scrolling and clicking next post.

Do you buy scrap bags and what do you make with them?

Enjoy!

Marcia