Quilted Placemats! FINALLY FINISHED!

I had the idea what seemed like EONS ago to make quilted placemats. I'm pretty particular when it comes to my table coverings, it so seems. Our old table had a very ugly top and had to constantly be covered with a table cloth. Because of the youngings we needed a vinyl tablecloth but I struggled with finding cute ones. It was pretty much a constant search! I did find some cute ones, especially some holiday-themed tablecloths. Anyway, when we moved we pitched out that table (HOLLA!) and got a new table for our breakfast nook, which is where we eat all of meals, so it should be called the every-day-meal nook. Anyway, I like the look of the table naked, but I also like having some fancies on it. I had made that doily table runner which I blogged about previously ... and soon after I got that finished, I thought up the idea to make quilted placemats. 

I had never quilted anything before and I'm glad I started with this design because it taught me a lot. I got the free pattern and a great tutorial from the Cluck Cluck Sew blog. 

I didn't realize how long quilting takes! Phew! What with the washing of the fabrics, then the ironing of all of the fabrics, then the line tracing and the cutting and the sewing and more ironing and more cutting and piecing together and on an on. 

I'm super duper happy with the final result though!  All of that hard work was so worth it! 

The placemats are in no way perfect. They're incredibly wonky in places and my lines don't line up perfectly, but I don't care! I actually love that they're imperfect. 

For now, the placemats stay on the table all the time. I may eventually put them away but I just like looking at them so much right now! The doily table runner is now gracing our formal dining room table. 

Each placemat is different. This one (above) is Mike's. It's got a black base to it. This one and mine have green stars in the middle of all of the squares. Ours are backed by the same black polka dot pattern. 

This one (above) is Arlene's. She chose this one because she liked the green skulls in top right corner. She's her mommy's daughter, that's for sure. The girls' placemats have the same orange striped center piece and they are backed with a floral pattern. 

This one (above) is mine! I really really really love the middle bottom block - scissors fabric and black star fabric! I also like the upper right - green skulls and one of my favorite pieces of fabric - a modern looking design with flowers. I also really like the two-tone purple square on the bottom left. Heck, I love ALL of the blocks!! 

This is Lydia's - she liked this one a lot because of the cupcake and ice cream design on the bottom left and she was happy she has some scissor fabric in the bottom right because it matches mine. 

What do you think? 

I quilted them just by sewing horizontal and vertical lines an inch apart. I didn't add any batting to the middle because I didn't want them to be too poofy. They are washable and I do expect them to be washed frequently. So far it's been a week and nothing has been spilled on them though, so that's good! I expect I will probably have to iron them once they're washed but maybe not.

I want to quilt some more now that I've gotten a taste of it. I would love to make a quilt for our bed, but I'm hesitant to do it because we have a king size bed! Oh, I almost forgot! ALL of these fabrics were FREE because they came out of my stash! And the sad thing? I used a bunch up and didn't even make a DENT in my stash! So maybe I'd be able to make a king size quilt using up the rest of the stash! I really like this star design even though it was hard to line up everything. These placemat stars were made with three inch squares. If I did a quilt I'd use five or six inch squares, which may be a bit easier. 

Hoooray for quilting!