Placemat Quilt Swap

This is installment number 2 on the October Swap round-up.

The Placemat Quilt Swap organised by Krommama was an opportunity to think small.

The mats were to be pieced, quilted and bound as usual, but to be roughly 13" x 17" in size.

My partner was AnnaMichelleQuilts, and as it turned out we both have 2 kids (one of each colour) we decided to make them one each!

I struggled for ages trying to decide what sort of patterns to use.

For Anna's toddler son I settled on an I-Spy design inspired by Cindy Carter's Scrappy Split Rail Quilt.

As the mats needed to be durable and washable I used fleece as batting and I backed it with a couple of polka-dot fabrics.

The quilting was simple and outlined the blocks.

Instead of seperate binding, I made the backing big enough so that I could wrap it round to the front and then be machine sewn. This was a new technique to me, and I think it came out OK, although the corners ended up not perfect - but I'm sure they'd get better with practice.

For her young teen daughter's placemat, in the end I settled on a Spiderweb block design using Quilt It's tutorial for guidance.

Each of the strips finished at @ 1/2" wide so they were quite fiddly to make.

I backed it with a single piece of patterned fabric I had lurking and quilted it along the segment lines.

Again I used the backing as the binding although this time the edges turned out quite wobbly!!

The 2 placemats that Anna sent me were phenomenal.

The first used my favourite rainbow inspired colours sewn into a hollow hexagon central shape, plus 2 sidebars.

The second was just so fun as she used applique, and some fabulous food fabric to make it look that dinner was served.

Thank you so much Anna - I've really enjoyed this swap xx