The gifts for our son this year were made to co-ordinate with the colors he has chosen to decorate his apartment. His main furniture pieces are black or white or charcoal grey. He has accented those with pops of green and orange here and there.
He has made some additions since we helped him move a little over a year ago. He’s found the dining room chairs he wanted from IKEA but hasn’t yet found a table to go with them. But when he does, he’ll need some placemats and hotpads/pot holders to set the table with.
The placemats were paper-pieced and finish at 12”x18”. The fronts of all four are the same design but for the backs… two were made using the black with white waves fabric and the other two were made using the black and white swirls fabric. That way he actually has 3 different sets of placemats depending on which side he faces up.
The matching hotpads/pot holders finish at 10” square. The inner heat resistant layer consists of a layer of Insul-Brite
They were all paper-pieced, which on the placemats did prove to be challenging when maneuvering them through the sewing machine. I now know why large paper pieced patterns are divided up into smaller sections and then sewn together.
I used a pattern I found on-line for inspiration but changed it to suit how I wanted them to look when finished. I still find it a little tricky to figure out where to start paper-piecing so having that pattern to use as a guide was a great help.
I hope you all enjoyed seeing the handmade gifts I made for our children for Christmas 2013. Dave and I decided not to exchange gifts because we have pretty much everything we need as far as material possessions go and anything else we really want isn’t giftable.
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1 Comment
Celtic Thistle Stitches
January 24, 2014 12:42 pmVery smart placemats hope your son soon has a table to put them on!
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