Quilted Place Mats

Hi there. As you may have noticed, I'm actually posting things on here. It's MARCH BREAK! Which is fabulous. I have time to do things. So I've been sewing up a storm and I'll probably do this post (placemats!) in a few separate ones. And the first post will be the actual placemats.

This was my idea. Pretty rough. But it helped.

 

 I cut all of my triangles out first: 15 blue and 10 yellow.

Best tip I can ever give you: PRESS. Like crazy.

(quilter's term for iron, but it literally means press it, don't rub it around!)

 I use a starch alternative called Best Press, I love it. Mostly because it smells so good, but it does keep my fabric nice and flat!

 

Unfortunately, I didn't have my quilting mat, or my rotary cutter. But I made do with scissors, pins and a ruler.

 

 I used my ruler to make sure I had equilateral triangles, to a size I wanted. It's difficult without a rotary cutter and mat because with scissors, it's hard to keep each triangle accurate. So my placemats definitely look homemade, but I kind of like it! My next one I'll do with my mat (much faster too).

I stitched the three triangles of the first row together, and pressed the seams towards the blue fabric. I always try to press towards the darker fabric to avoid the seams showing through the lighter fabrics.

Then, I flipped it over and trimmed the little bits off.

 For the second row, pressing outwards didn't work, so I snipped up to the seam to separate the rebellious one. I pressed as much as I could towards the blue fabric. The most important thing is for it to be flat when it's finished. Don't want lumpy placemats after all!

The pattern is really simple. Continue sewing these strips, each one longer than the last and stitch the strips together. Match them face to face and stitch along the edges. It is important to pin the points of the triangles together and ensure that they are stitched together. In most small projects like this, I shamefully admit that I rarely pin. But because it's really obvious if the points aren't lined up, I did pin these. 

Make sure to keep pressing! Even if the edges of the strips are a bit different in length, still match the points up. Fabric has a bit of stretch remember, and it's easy to pull it around and make it work!

Once all the strips are sewn together, you have the top! I quilted mine- so used batting. I buy my batting from the local quilt store for $10.70 a wide metre. I avoid complete polyester even though it's cheaper, this batting is warmer, thinner and has a nicer consistency (right word?). Usually I cut my batting an inch smaller than the size of my quilt top, but this time I want my binding to be smaller than usual, so I cut it to the size of my placemat. 

Once the edges of the quilt, batting, and backing fabric are stitched together, I stitched along the seams (not on the seams), to quilt it.

 And that's it for now! I'm going to do another post about:

Tips and Tricks for quilting!
and
Binding a quilt! (or placemat!) to finish the edge

I hope y'all are enjoying your break as much as I am!
xx
Hayley

PS. Andrew is posting soon! How exciting. Stay tuned for his post about something super cool.