Thursday, October 2, 2014

The tenth month

October gave a party
The leaves by hundreds came~~
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
and leaves of every name.
The sunshine spread a carpet,
and everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing
Professor Wind the band.
George Cooper

I bought a panel sometime in late August along with a metre of backing fabric.  I had great intentions to just stitch up this panel and use it as a table runner.  Then, I found out it was way too big for my coffee table.  
As we use our dining-room table every day, I couldn't put it there either.
I left it alone for awhile and worked on other things while I mulled it over.  
I don't know why I buy panels.  They are not my favourite thing.  I have yet to bring one home and have it straight.  Karl and I tug and pull on them until they are almost there.  They never get "there" so I'm never too impressed with them.  I guess once something is wonky, it is always wonky.  I wonder why they can't print them straight??????

I decided to cut it up!  I trimmed away the two ends
which left me with the centre panel.
By the time I got this straight I had the middle, the brown and the orange.  The red is in the bucket ready to be donated for doggie beds.
 I put this through the machine with every simple quilting and I used a Sulky variegated thread, something I have never used before for machine quilting.  It was the only thread I had on hand that really looked nice on the background fabric and I have to say it worked beautifully.

I bet it didn't take me an hour to get the quilting done.  I bound it the same day and then a thought came to me.

Those ends ...... could they make up some placemats?
A few minutes at the work station and I was ready to sew them.  I decided to cut the leaf section into two parts.  I trimmed the green borders and added the orange fabric I had left over from the centre of the panel.  Two placemats will have the leaves on one side, two will have them on the other.
I joined the pieces by sewing them right to the needle punched batting.

I made the backings and sewed them to the front pieces right sides together and within 2 hours, I had four placemats for the Thanksgiving table.  I'll start using them a week before.  I like to extend the season.














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