Placemats

It definitely is high time to update my blog!  I've been very busy sewing lately, but not a lot has been finished off, so I haven't been able to post any finishes.  However, progress is being made!  I just finished Bonnie Hunter's Easy street putting the last stitches into the binding and label this week.  I just have to get a picture of that huge quilt one of these days and I will post pictures of the beautiful quilting that the long arm quilter did! The Kaffe Fasset Bordered Diamonds quilt is also finished and I will do a separate post on that this week. 

Meanwhile, my local quilt guild held a workshop in March on making placemats.  This was a really fun workshop designed to learn different techniques on a small project.  I was asked to share the organic line quilting I had been experimenting with.  We decided to make placemats.  Other members of the guild started the morning off teaching paper piecing and a quilt as you go technique.  After lunch, I showed some samples of organic line quilting and straight line quilting using your free motion foot.  This was the first placemat I did with some leftover little house blocks from another project using smoke invisible Mono.poly thread from Superior:

 The next placemat I did was with some leftover tree blocks from the same sampler quilt using some King Tut variegated thread:

I had some more houses in my leftover sampler block pile, this time using Kaffe Fasset prints.  I added strips of Moda candy to the sides and again used a King Tut variegated thread to quilt it with organic lines:

This block even has Dutch lace curtains in the window!

I found a lovely stripe for binding:

This placemat got a zany back!

The quilt as you go technique:

This one was inspired by a quilt I saw with circle quilting.  I thought a placemat would be a great way to try this out.  I drew out a circle and then quilted echoing lines using the edge of the walking foot.  I used a rectangle of Kona cotton and attached some Moda candy squares (2 1/2")  on each corner with a glue stick.  I then just quilted the circles stitching the 'candies' down as I went along.    Doesn't this remind you of the volume buttons on a phone? LOL

Found the perfect striped binding for this placemat too (sorry about the angle of this photo...it really is not that crooked :-)

This was the perfect project to teach some new skills and we can donate the placemats to our charity project for meals on wheels in December if we don't know where to put them :-).