Placemats

I am not a quilter. I have never been a quilter and I have no desire to be a quilter. I'm one of life's eyeballers, I lack the precision to be a quilter. My grandmother was a successful quilter so clearly the family isn't entirely devoid of the precision gene, but it certainly skipped me.

My mother asked me to make some new placemats. Because I'm not a quilter, I wasn't planning on sewing them. I had visions of crocheted slightly lacy ovals in some nice modern looking 10ply cotton in an olive green to match the colour scheme downstairs. Until she got home one day and presented me with a bag and said 'I bought some fabric that would be perfect for the placemats!' Right. So, sewn placemats then. And I added matching coasters because I felt guilty for taking six months to make four placemats.

I kept things very simple. Two rectangles of the fabric with some batting sandwiched between, straight lines of quilting and bias tape around the edges. Even so, I'm fairly sure my grandmother was turning in her grave at some of the things I did. I rather like the handstitching though.