Third Time's the Charm

Tonight, I settled into my sewing room to make a few quick and easy placemats. I should know by now that quick and easy in concept never seems to equal quick and easy in practice!

I started by going through all my fabric to find some that would work well - after warm weather today, I was looking for springy fat quarters that were dark enough that they could get food spilled on them without too much worry about stains (with a 2 and 4 year old, there will be lots of food on them....). Found a couple that I liked, but then discovered that a few of them weren't really fat quarters, but other odd cuts. They are among the first pieces of fabric I ever bought, so I guess I didn't know what I didn't know. So, got two fabrics finally selected, cut, and decided to sandwich them, because I don't think placemats really need binding - too much fuss for something that is going to be used so heavily. Sewed the sandwich - and here's what happened....

I put the batting in the middle of the sandwich, which means that when you turn it inside out, the batting will be on the outside instead of the inside...called mom to tell her about my mistake and quickly ripped it out....put it back together and didn't check twice....wound up with the wrong sides together....arrrgghhh! Second time to rip it out and now I am thinking that it would be so much quicker to just run to Kohl's and pick up something springy. But I am a little too stubborn to stop now....got them sewn together, turned, and then decided to quilt them a little, trying something new - I thought flowers would be cute.

Here's the end result...notice that the picture isn't too close because my flowers look like they have odd globs on them instead of petals...and at the end of this, I am thinking that it really looked a lot more crisp before I quilted them...oh, well, at least the kids will have fun picking out the animals on them.

So, at the end, the project that should have taken about 45 minutes wound up being a 2 1/2 hour project....better luck next time! Oh, and in case you're wondering if I've really lost it, they are supposed to be wedgy - we have a round table, so this shape should work well when there are 4 on the table...that is, if I ever make three more!