It's nearly Thanksgiving, and really busy here. I've still got to clean my house - a big job, trust me. The turkey is thawing in the fridge, but I need to shop for cranberries and the rest of the menu, and then cook it all! But I can't forget my November entry for Sew Cal Gal's
"A Handmade Christmas Challenge".
I took a pledge in January on
Sew Cal Gal's web site to make handmade gifts and decorations for Christmas. Those of us who took the pledge post them then link them up and get a chance to win a prize via a random drawing at the end of the year. I missed a couple of months, but overall, I've been making something most months. November is the last regular month - December will be a wrap up. It should be fun to see all the things people have made.
This month, I made placemats. They are destined for Meals on Wheels. A friend is collecting placemats to be delivered with the Christmas meals this year. She needed over 500 placemats (that's a lot of meals!) and I volunteered to make some. Here they are:
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| Placemats for Meals on Wheels |
These were a lot of fun to make. I made them all different, but they all had some crazy piecing that I learned in a workshop with
Jacquie Gering that my guild sponsored. She's a wonderful teacher and speaker who makes amazing Modern Quilts. Unfortunately, I didn't have any modern fabrics in reds and greens, so I just used mostly traditional styles. I wanted to put more quilting on these, but I ran out of time... what else?! They are made with regular quilting weight cotton fabric and I used wool batting, which looks a little poofy. Here's a closer look.
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| Crazy Pieced Center Placemat |
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| Crazy Piecing strip bordered with pieced strips. (I ran out of red.) |
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| Crazy Piecing strip with no borders. |
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| Bordered Crazy Piecing bordered with solid red at left side of mat. |
