Thursday 12 November 2009

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

3 comments:

  1. Hi Leah,

    Your little Scrappy Split Rail I Spy is a darling quilt.

    What a good idea for an I Spy quilt.

    Great job.

    Cindy Carter

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  2. both the placemats you sent and received are great. i especially love your spiderweb one. so cute at that size

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  3. Nice ideas here.Great patchwork designs.

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