It's a Placemat Party!

A few weeks ago, Sarah of SewJoy blog sent me an e-mail and asked if I'd like to participate in her "Placemat Party". She designed a cute and simple placemat pattern and all we had to do was make a placemat from her pattern and then join in the fun of a blog hop party!! I love fun, blogging, and fabric so it was easy to reply with a "yes"! For all the details on the blog hop just go here to Sara's blog, where you'll find examples of her design done in different fabrics. Plus, there are even prizes!!
Once I decided to join the Placemat Party, I let Sarah know that I would be using patriotic fabrics for my sample. Here they are.........
I have had these fabrics for quite awhile. I won the four large print pieces at a quilt club meeting in 1999 when Hancock fabrics did a trunk show and those four fabrics (1/2 yard cuts) were the door prize. I like them because they have "sparkle" so when I found the two blues and the flag print that also had "sparkle", I had to have them, too. When I unfolded the "patchwork" looking piece, an idea popped into my head..........

"fussy-cut squares"..........and that's just what I did to get fabrics that I could use for the corner of Sarah's placemat design! And here is my finished placemat...........

I followed the pattern but made one variation.....I added a pocket to each side of the placemat so that tableware could go in one pocket and a napkin in the other pocket as you see here.......

I made this placemat for someone special........my grandson, Jacob. He's going camping this weekend so I thought it would be fun to have a special placemat for the picnic table. He was here to visit this past Sunday and I gave him some patriotic tinsel garland that he can use to decorate his tent. And this afternoon, I am going to go visit him and take him this placemat. He's young enough that he'll think this is cool. :-) I even bought some patriotic plates so when he parties for the 4th it might look like this ...........

I used a mottled red fabric for the backing and sewed it together "pillow-case style" as I call it. Translation.....I sewed backing, batting and quilt top together and left a small opening so I could turn it inside out. Then I slip-stitched the opening closed and did some machine quilting along the border and along each block. Then I added a label because as I was making the placemat, I realized that the fabric is from the same year Jacob was born! This then made me realize that he's growing up too fast and also, that I really need to use my stash and not buy any more fabric for awhile. Ha! Jacob will continue to grow and I will continue to buy fabric! :-)
So, there you have it ......... a patriotic placemat that was as fun as a party when I was making it! I enJOYed making it a lot! Seriously, it was very easy and went together very quickly. Thanks, Sarah, for a fun pattern which gave me the opportunity to make a special gift for my grandson! And yes, I have enough fabric left that I will probably make more of these. I think they would also be really cute made up for kids in bright prints with polka dots and zoo animals and other fun kid prints.......and in Christmas fabrics.........and in cute kitchen prints. Oh, yes, lots of variations and I have fabric in my stash for all of these ideas. LOL!

Now........be sure to check out Sarah's blog for details on how you can win her pattern, fabric and some other goodies. She is also offering each of us on the blog hop, a pdf of her pattern so one lucky winner will get a copy of Sarah's pattern just by leaving a comment on this post. And to sweeten the JOY, I have added a journal for keeping track of your projects ....... and...... a new little pattern (from Valorie Wells) for a wallet so you can make one and then tuck cash in it so you can save to buy fabric.........and then there is a pair of my favorite little scissors from Singer (so sharp for cutting tiny pieces and snipping threads, plus they have large rubber handles for easy grip!).

All you have to do is leave your name and a link to your blog and/or your e-mail address so that I will be able to contact you if you win. Comments are open now through Friday evening. A winner will be announced on Saturday morning, July 3rd. Good luck and enJOY!

Sandi