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Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Batik Placemats

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I wanted to finish one last small project before going back to work after my summer break.  I found a Sandpiper Bali Snap in my stash and realized it would be perfect for new placemats.  I decided on  a very simple 3 x 4 square pattern as I wanted them to be large so I needed 48 squares to make 4 placemats so had to add two extra fabrics from my stash for each mat.

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I quilted them with random wavy lines as I like my placemats quilted heavily to keep their shape.  I used batik fabric on the back so it will all shrink as the same percentage and not warp. Quilters Dream Blend batting and So Fine beige thread.  I do my binding on placemats by machine by sewing to the back and turning to the front then stitching them down.  I would never do this on a regular quilt as I prefer the look of a hand stitched binding.  But for a placemat it is  a quicker method and I didn’t have to hand stitch batik binding to a batik backing…not something I enjoy!

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This is one of those days that taking pictures indoors worked better than outdoors.  It was cloudy so the outdoor pictures did not show the quilting so the natural light coming through the windows worked much better.  I had a nice shout out today on my quilt photography on the APQS blog, you can read their article on quilt photography here.  I also have a post on how to take quilt pictures which I wrote a few years ago.  You can check out here if your interested in reading my tips on quilt photography.  The only change since I wrote the article is I now use a DSLR camera ( Canon Rebel T4i).

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8 comments:

  1. I love your placemats! The colors and simplicity of them are perfect for your dark table top. Love the wavy line quilting, too.

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  2. Они такие классные!!!

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  3. Truly lovely... the fabric you chose, the wavy lines, and the outdoor settings,all looking perfect to me.

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  4. These placemats are great! These colors, the perfect simple pattern and simple elegant quilting. Beautiful! Greetings from Poland :)

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  5. I love it when you share batting and thread choices

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  6. I am binding a much larger quilt by the method you describe because I am dealing with the same problem--hand stitching batik binding to batik backing is asking for torture. Place mats are lovely on the table but really love the nature shot.

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