Retro Christmas Placemats (Triangle Practice)
You may remember that last week I showed you the placemats I made for my grandparents. Well, for Christmas I made my parents some placemats as well! My mom has been saying for a while that she needed some new placemats—and with our growing family (my brother is engaged!) it was a good time to make her something new to use.
In the placemats for my grandparents I really wanted to showcase the cupcake material. I didn’t have the same need for the retro placemats—and, as you know from my discussion of the anniversary quilt, Dad likes smaller piecework. I chose to use each fabric as the back of one placemat—I made six mats and had six different materials.
So this is the pattern I came up with:
See those triangles in the middle? That’s right. More triangle practice. I knew that I wanted my triangles in the middle to make a six-inch square. So I practiced with paper first to see what size I needed to make the original triangles.
I ended up making the original squares of fabric 7 ½ -inch squares to allow for the seams.
I want to note that I used the same basic technique as my last triangle practice (put the two squares together and sew on either side of the diagonal line between corners). I did it a second time to get a four-triangle square instead of just two triangles. Line up the seams on two of the 2-triangle squares with the good sides together and sew down either side of the adjacent diagonal. Hopefully that makes sense, if not, check out the pictures.
I did end up having to trim the squares down to 6 ½-inch squares (notice the extra ½ for seams).
From there it got a lot easier—the piecework after the triangles was nothing special.
I quilted the top, batting, and back together—same as my grandparents’ placemats. I stitched in the ditch, but used some of the different stitches on my machine to add a little more character.
It’s fun to see how some of the same techniques that I’ve used before can still make something very different and fun.
So now Mom and Dad have six placemats—enough for all us of to have one plus two guests (or a fiancé and a guest).
