Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and other arts.

Spring placemats

I have an April finish!

 

I started these placemats last summer. The fabrics are all sunprints done with lace. I showed the sunprinted fabric here and here. I learned that sunprinting doesn’t work great with lighter colors but I wanted to use all the lace prints in a project and decided on placemats. They wound up as a UFO because I’m not totally happy with how I decided to use the fabric.

I’m glad I’m tracking UFO projects this year because it helped me look at these again, accept what I don’t like about them and remind myself that they are just placemats that will be soiled with food so I could finish them.

 

My favorite part of this project are the napkins. This one is printed with curtain lace from my Grandma Dove’s house.

 

Here are all 6 napkins. I think they will make for a very festive table.

 

The best part is that they look great with the new glasses that I bough in Staunton at the Glass Festival this weekend!

HSTeria Placemats

Before Mom got here I was able to do some more quilting on my placemats. During breaks from Tell It To The Stars I actually got them finished.

I really love how they turned out and so did Mom because she put them in her bag to take home.

I thought the quilting would take a long time but it didn't. If you look in the gray section you can see that I didn't get carried away with precision. The uneven spaces won't be visible under a plate. 

I had this binding fabric in my stash and it worked perfect. It was a leftover piece from a quilt back so I was able to cut 4 long strips with no piecing required. I did these with a single binding. I thought that a double binding would be too thick. With that backing print you can't even tell that I used about 5 different colors of bobbin threads to empty some bobbins.

The sweatshop is progressing along. Today we are going to take a break to go test drive the Innova longarm. I might be in the market.....

In lieu of a bow

Chris is going to Florida tomorrow to hang out with some friends for the week. I wanted to send a piece of glass to the hostess. As I was wrapping it I decided against a bow because I knew it would be flattened by the time this package reaches it's destination. Instead I cut some 2" strips of the leftover paper and wove them together. It needed a black base though and I didn't have any black paper - but I did ahve card stock and black paint. The weaving section is 6" square and the black is 6.5" square. Double sided tape holds it all together.

Easy and elegant table runner - a tutorial

You may remember last September when I stamped a piece of the Kettering gradient. I used my favorite nature stamps from Fred B. Mullett. I always intended to make a table runner with the fabric but it languished because I could not figure out how I would quilt it. Then while redoing the guest room and putting away my grandmother's dresser scarves I realized that I didn't need to quilt it!

I decided to use mine as dresser scarves for the guest house bedroom. Here's how I made them.

I had stamped a half yard of fabric and decided to cut it in half lengthwise for 2 table runners. Square up the panels of fabric and measure the length of the panel. Note that measurement to use later.

I think that the wide border is what makes this look so elegant. I cut 2.5" strips and added a mitered border. You could do straight borders but I like the look of the miter. Here's a great Youtube video on making mitered borders.

This could be finished in several ways including a narrow hem or narrow binding. I decided that I wanted mine faced to give a little more heft to the edge of the table runner and it to cover all of the seams. I cut more 2.5" strips and finished one long edge with the serger. A zig-zag stitch would work. I used this method because I didn't want to turn under a hem.

I made a frame the size of the border on the table runner. Instead of making miters I seamed these pieces with straight seams so that there would not be double bulk under the mitered seams. To do this I first cut the long edges the same length as the cut length of the center (the measurement from above). I cut the end pieces the width of the table runner with the borders. I I stitched them together so that the finished edges are on the INSIDE of the facing.

In this photo the facing is pinned to the table runner right sides together. You can see the serged edges toward the inside. Sew through both layers all around the edge at 1/4".

Before turning the facing clip off the corners to remove bulk from the turned corners. One secret that I learned in garment making is that it's easier to turn a facing if you first press the seam open. I press my seams open over a point presser but you can do most of it flat and you can finger press the corners.

Here's the facing turned to the back and pinned in place. You can see that the facing covers all of the seams.

Stitch in the ditch next to the border to secure the facing in place and you are all done! It really only took about an hour to make this.

 

I made 2, one for the dresser at the top of the post and one for the chest. These pieces of furniture are pretty beat up so these cover a lot of blemishes. 

 

 

Placemats from Little Bits - a little tutorial

During the past few weeks I didn't have the time or energy for any "big" sewing or quilting. One evening I pulled out a bag of little bits of fabric and just started sewing them together.

These bits are from 2 sources. The greens and blues are from by Back to Square One quilt and the other fabrics are from my shibori Grandmother's Choice blocks. I think that sewing like this is very relaxing and when I started I had no plans for a project. Once the project was done I started looking around for an idea and other fabrics to combine with them.

I had a lot of these blue strips from some of the BTSO blocks. I used the wrong blue and had to remake them. The light green was the largest chunk of leftover fabric from that same quilt. There wasn't enough of either for a quilt so I started thinking placemats.

I cut 6 backs and batting (old flannel sheet) for placemats. My placemats are cut 13" x 17".  I've talked about using flannel sheets in my placemats before but I'll go over it again now. I like flannel sheets because they are already pre-shrunk, they are not as thick as batting and I have LOTS of them so the "batting" is free for me. I will also use flannel sheets for quilt batting for light summer quilts.

Next I had to figure out what I was going to do. I decided that each placemat will be different based on whatever little block or blocks I'm working with and that each little block will be bordered with the blue strips.

Here's an example. I started with this big chunk and decided that this one would hang off the left edge  of the placemat. 

I started by trimming it so that the edges are straight lines and then added the blue trim on 3 sides. I have the pieced chunk on top of the batting and backing and stitched through all layers.  I also made a mistake with this one. That left edge should hang over the batting by at least a half inch to turn to the back to finish the edges. Not to worry, I fixed it with a wide blue strip.

Here's the first placemat with the correcting blue strip and the green background added. The fabric hangs over the edge of the placemant at least 1/2" all the way around. To add the green I cut large chunks and add them in a flip and sew method.

I turned the raw edges to the back and steam pressed them in place.

To finish the edges I did 2 rows of stitching (from the front) around the edge and then trimmed the extra fabric close to the inside stitching. I could have used a twin needled, done a zig zag stitch or a standard binding. I tend to take the easy and quick way out on placemats.

Quilting was the last step. I did ditch stitching around the blue frame and then did parallel stitching around all of the shapes. I used a light thread for the background and a darker thread for the patchwork shapes.

I made 6 placemats because that's how much fabric I had! It was a great exercise to work with each placemat separately and work out 6 different layouts and I think it was a good use of fabric that was probably headed for the trash bin.