Halloween Placemats

 Don't have Halloween decor at your house?  Why not make yourself some Halloween Place Mats?

Recently I made some of these Halloween Place Mats.  It was super easy...anyone can do it!

You'll need assorted Halloween fabrics, sewing machine, thread, some sort of batting/interfacing.

I had a bunch of Halloween I-Spy squares, so I started with these.

Find a place mat you like the size of to use as a template, then sew together your fabrics.

Once your front is sewn, cut your back to about the same size. Place RIGHT sides together and sew around 3 1/4 sides.  Now turn inside out, add your batting (I used the stuffing out an old office chair...I'm all about repurposing!) and close your 4th side.  Quilt if you like. 

I quilted one set that I gave my sister and the other set (for baby Cooper and his parents) I just ironed to set the batting in place.

These are super easy and easily add a festive feeling to your house!  Enjoy!!

Cheers~

Marti

Spring Placemats

Our family is very conscious of the environment.  We try to reduce, reuse and recycle as much and as often as possible.  With Earth Day right around the corner, I thought I would share an interesting take on repurposing a common household item.

If you're like us, you have a lot of items around the house that are past their usefulness in the original state.  You think, there's got to be something you can do with them, but what?  Larry has a lot of t-shirts that can't be worn any longer and I came up with an interesting way to reuse them.  I used them as the batting for quilted palcemats. 

It's easy!

So for this project, I used repurposed t-shirts and some zippy Spring Fabrics

For this project you'll need:

Fabric for the front (I cut mine 20x14)

Fabric for the back (I had 2 that were one fabric and 2 that were pieced) also 14x20

1-2 pieces for each mat of scrap fabric such as an old t-shirts also 14x20

Seam Binding or Ribbon to finish

Scissors, Rotary Cutter, ruler, thread, sewing machine, iron

Put your placemat fabrics together right sides facing each other.  Now place t-shirt fabric on top of the sandwich, so that the t-shirt fabric is facing the wrong side of one of your fabrics as shown above.  Sew together one of the short sides. 

Now flip your placemat to the right side and press.  You should have a sandwich with your old T-shirts in the middle.  Now we will be working on the right side of the placemat.  Starting in the center and working out, quilt some wavy lines into your placemat. 

When you're done quilting, trim and add seam binding or ribbon to finish.  Now repeat the process for the remaining placemats.  I did four of these, two with solid tops and two with pieced tops.

Now set the table and enjoy your new Spring placemats.  And you can feel good that you reused something that might ordinarily be thrown away. 

I hope these instructions were clear and you enjoyed this tutorial.  Feel free to ask any questions you have.  These really are super easy and really brighten up your table!

Happy Earth Week!

Cheers~

Marti

Friday Night Sew In Stuff

Although from looking at my pictures, it doesn't seem like I got a lot accomplished, I actually did!

I cut and chain pieced about 200 pieces for a coin quilt I am making.  I'm using a tutorial from Moda bake shop, which actually looks quite easy.  I'm still fiddling with the sashing and border fabrics, but the bulk of the work is done, as shown in this pile.

My limiting factor last night was that I really didn't feel like dragging out the ironing board, so I stopped with the chain piecing.

I then moved on to a placemat project.  I had cut out the fabric last weekend for 4 placemats.  I tried one technique, that did not work the way I wanted it to.  Basically I'm trying to use left over fabric and old t-shirts as the inside batting.  When you sew woven cotton to knit (like t-shirt material) it stretches and puckers....bummer for me.

So I had to embark on a new course with the placemats.  I sewed together one side, quilted the front, t-shirt and back together, trimmed and then added seam binding.  It actually turned out cute.  I started the second placemat (top of photo) and quickly realized that I needed the iron, so I stopped for the night.

So, this is my first Friday Night Sew In.  I really like the idea of setting aside time to do something creative.  Although I just started sewing, I have a lot of projects that I need to work on. 

Cheers~
Marti