Placemats in the works

Today I decided ignore the things I should be doing/need to be doing and work on a project I've wanted to do for a long time. Placemats for the beach cottage. Quite a while ago I found a runner pattern with templates by Eleanor Burns that I thought would be perfect. Do you know Eleanor Burns from Quilt in a Day?  I watched her show many moons ago, it might still be on tv but it's not available here. She always cracked me up with throwing the leftover bits over her shoulder and the way she talked as if we were all kindergartners. Well, I signed up for a seminar with her at the Sewing Expo a couple years ago - in person she's even funnier and very irreverent - the camera man had a perpetual shade of red on his face the entire 45 minutes.

So, of course I can't follow her instructions to the T because I'm not making the runner. To make sure I understood which pieces would get sewn to each other I made up some pieces in paper, labeled and taped them together. I had already washed my fabrics, eons, ago so I was ready to start this morning when I decided to ditch my to-do list for the day.

Here's I'm cutting the pattern pieces using her plexiglass template and my rotating cutting mat - I love this cutting mat, why did it take me so many years to buy one of these???

Here are all my pieces cut out - enough for 6 placemats plus a centerpiece. I only keep 4 placemats on the table on a daily basis but I thought it smart to make the extra two. With the size of these I'm not sure there will be room for a centerpiece on the table but I'll have it for wherever.

Here I'm chain stitching pieces together. I set the pieces to be sewn next to the machine how they are to be sewn together - care must be taken not to sew them together in the wrong place. I didn't do it on this project but I have in the past. Organization is crucial.

Here's a view of what the pieces look like as I'm sewing them together....always keeping them in order.

Here's the first one done on the left - 6 more to go. I can't believe how fast this method of sewing the Grandmother's Garden pattern is....what a simple way to sew hexies together.

And here is one top finished. I could have finished them all up today but I'm not sure I'm happy with the borders. I'm thinking of making the first border white (it's white with little silver polka-dots), and making it a little narrower.....then the pink border. Once quilted there will be a binding around the edge too. I'm not sure what color the binding will be - maybe white - I only started with one yard of each of the colors so I probably won't have enough left for the binding but I bought lots of the white figuring I'd serge some matching napkins.

I'm not sure what kind of quilting I'll do on these.....maybe just stitch in the ditch.....will decide when I get to that step. For a brief moment I thought about how fun it would be if they were hand quilted but then I came to my senses because I know that might not happen for months years rather than getting these finished up soon. I'm hoping to work on these a bit more tomorrow.......had to stop mid-afternoon today as there are some other things I must get to today.

It felt really good to work on something for myself rather than always working on projects that bring in an income.......I need to do this more often.......maybe I need to semi-retire.........