New placemats & Thanksgiving memories

I can’t believe that December is well underway and I’ve just started to decorate for Christmas. It’s been a crazy, busy few weeks; I feel like I’m behind in everything! Let’s get caught up with some new placemats I recently made and a few pictures from our Thanksgiving in Texas.

Take Four Placemats

This is one of those projects that just jumped into my program without an invitation. It started with the fabric and which then led to the Take Four Placemats pattern. The fabric is from the Winter Dreams collection from Figo Fabrics. It’s a nice collection that’s more Winter than Christmas. I added a gold fabric from a different fabric line which allowed it to cross-over from Fall to Winter. (Both the pattern and fabric are available at The Granary, my LQS in California).

After all was said and done, the gold is a little strong. Perhaps stealing the show, even. Since my son-in-law graduated from Baylor University and green and gold are their colors, it’s just right for their family in Texas.

These placemats were SO quick and easy to make. As the name implies, the Take Four pattern uses four fat quarters. You stack them on top of each other and make several cuts, then shuffle the stacks and sew together. You repeat that process once more and you get four placemats with slight variations in color placement.

I used fusible fleece for the batting which keeps them nice and flat. I also used the “pillowcase method” to finish them instead of binding. For this, you place the backing and top/batting layers right sides together and stitch around the edges with 1/4″ seam. You leave a 3″ opening on one side to turn right side out. Trim the edges and clip the corners. Press and then topstitch close to the edge to finish the edges and close the opening. At this point, I quilted it by stitching in the ditch. I like the pillowcase technique because it’s really fast and gives the placemats a home décor look instead of a quilt-y look.

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Frosted Pine placemats

Because there are six table settings at my daughter’s house, I needed two more placemats. I wanted some that were more kid-friendly in design. I used the same fabric collection, but changed the pattern to my own making. And I made four – one for each grandchild.

You might recognize the tree from my Frosted Pines tutorial. I used one tree and had to resize it to fit. The size of these placemats are 13″ x 15″ (I think). They turned out really cute and were another quick project to make.

Thanksgiving memories

We traveled to Texas to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter and her family. Our other three children met us there and it was glorious to spend a few days all together. If you have adult children, you know how precious it is when they can all be in the same location at the same time (especially if they live in different states).

There’s nothing like four kids between ages 2 and 9 to keep us entertained and subsequently exhausted. No complaints, though. Our hearts are full!

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I hope your December is off to a good start. I’m ready to focus on the next holiday which means decorating, baking, crafting and spending time with family and friends. We’ll be traveling again – this time to Washington for Christmas. But for now, I’m enjoying my time at home.