Placemats!

A friend of mine got married last August, and I finally got around to making a wedding gift.  Yes, I'm only 5 months late...


Anyway, I got the idea from this post.  Everyone can always use new placemats, right?  I liked the idea, having pops of color on a neutral background.


With this in mind, I set off to the fabric store and settled with a grey background, with blue details.

As I may have mentioned once or twice: I don't like following patterns.  I tend to make things up as I go.  I also detest measuring things, and cutting things over and over and over.  There was a lot of that, to make these placemats!   Oh well.

I'm sure it took longer than it should have.  Half of my time was spent working with the sewing machine-- I mostly have the tension issues worked out, but for some reason, my decorative stitches are still having problems.  I finally got the regular zig-zag stitch to work (mostly) well.  I'm stumped.  I've consulted the manual, the internet, I've played with it myself...  hmph!  The sewing machine I used growing up didn't have all these fancy stitches - or if it did, I didn't know - so it's frustrating that I can't use them, and can't figure them out!  I'll get there eventually.

A few problems, and a few things I would do differently next time (I think I might make more for Christmas gifts?):

• Press the seams differently: I realized my mistake about halfway through, but I pressed the seams both over to the same side for some things.  Next time, I'll do them flat, like a normal person.
• Either make the stripe of colors centered, or move them up/down more.  I meant to make them off-center, but they don't look off-center enough to be intentional-- so instead, it just kind of looks like it's accidentally off-center.
• Figure out those darn decorative stitches!

Since I don't like following instructions, I'm not about to provide instructions (also because I don't remember the exact dimensions I used).  So, without further ado:

Blue and grey placemats!

Ta-da!

(grr, why won't it rotate?)

At least I managed the zig zag...

So, there they are.  They came out alright, I think.  The grey fabric looks a little rough and industrial in the photos, but I think they look alright in real life.

I'm considering whipping up some quick, matching coasters.  We'll see.