Just finished the set of eight placemats for Andrea’s kitchen. I don’t have a picture of her kitchen but the tile floor is grey/white, cupboards are dark brown, countertops also white/grey granite, and there’s a dark red sofa in the family room. Hence my colour selection.

This set of placemats used eight fat quarters (a fat quarter is half of a 1/2 m of fabric rather than 1/4 m from the width of the fabric). They are stacked and cut into pieces (the pieces from each fabric are all the same size and shape), then you mix and match to create the placemat. Very efficient use of fabric – very little left over.

Finished dimensions: 17″ x 13″ – a good size for a placemat. I used a brown/brown printed fabric for the reverse.

I could have completed the placemats with a binding but used a “pillowcase” finish instead – stitched the quilt sandwich in the following way: back fabric wrong side up, pieced top fabric right side up, batting. The edge stitching starts part way along one long side, and edge side, second long side, second edge side, and finally part way on the other end of the first side leaving an opening to turn the placemat right side out. The small opening (~ 4″) is blind stitched closed. I just like the look of the placemats unbound.

The quilting: stitch in the ditch along all seams both horizontal and vertical; very quickly done.