Placemat Challenge

It’s a new year with new Island Batik challenges ahead. I’m so excited. I have been watching our new Island Batik Ambassadors as they unpack their boxes of supplies for the next six months and start off running with their first challenge. The creativity of this group is amazing, and inspiring! I will be posting my Unboxing video on Tuesday the 26th so be sure to come see what beautiful fabrics, threads, and other supplies I received.

So our first challenge for 2021 was a set of coordinating Placemats. We could use any technique, but they needed to be 12″ x 18″ or larger.

For fabric, I decided to use the 2 1/2″ strips of Starry Night, by Kathy Engle. I just love the beautiful blues. Along with my precuts, I was given two coordinating foundation fabrics: Shark, a grayish blue Basic, and a dark blue Blender fabric. Starry Night will be available in quilt shops in February. The Basic and Blender fabrics are always available.

I decided to make Lemoyne Stars with my strips using Studio 180 Design‘s Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star tool. I used a couple of 2 1/2″ strips for the stars and the Shark fabric for the background.

If you have not tried the tools from Studio 180 Design, you really should check them out. They are based on the principle of making your units bigger than they need to be, then trimming them down so that you have a precise block with all your points.

I sewed my star with strips, no Y-seams!

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I used a few more strips to add stripes around the stars and used the dark blue for the main part of my placemat.

I decided to use my sewing machine to quilt for some free motion practice. I used 50 weight Aurifil threads, #2785, 1320, 2740 and 2770, Hobbs cotton batting, and a Schmetz Microtex needle # 70 for quilting.

For a little more color and use of those beautiful strips I bound each placemat with a different color strip.

Disclosure: The fabrics, thread, batting and needles were generously supplied by the following companies:

Be sure to check out the very creative placemats made by the other 2021 Island Batik Ambassadors.