Decorating for the holidays has not been much of my thing lately but I have been wanting to incorporate small festive touches. I decided seasonal placemats would fit the bill.
Four years ago I completed a pair of Halloween throws. Those ate up a huge amount of my spooky fabric stash but not all of it. I dug out those scraps and began.
I cut 2.5” strips of fabric as long as I could but at least 15” long. Then I sewed the seven strips together lengthwise. When I had a rectangle, I put the right sides together, again lengthwise, and sewed. Now I had a tube. After pressing my seams, I cut 2.5” strips from the tube.
Next I opened up the loop of squares at a seam between two of the blocks. To get the staggered look, I shifted where I chose to rip. When all of the loops were flat strips again, I played with the layout and sewed the strips together again.
Two of the placemats are identical twins and the other two are fraternal. I really wanted to incorporate purple but I didn’t have enough to add in full strips. In a few places I substituted purple squares.
I echo quilted these with a 12-weight thread which allowed the stitching to pop and then I machine bound them.
Candy corn fabric was the perfect choice for the backing. The only thing I had to buy for this project was the binding and the obvious choice was purple.
I’m quite pleased that these are done. I have one more strip set sewn and I plan to make that into a table runner of sorts. Stay tuned.
I really had to think about how you did the tube! I love the method! I love the end product! They are fantastic.
Fraternal twin placemats…excellent!