Nothing in Common

I watched a YouTube video the other day on the topic of stash busting. The creator suggested using a bunch of different fabrics and laid them out in a checkerboard fashion. I woke up this morning thinking of a stashbusting project I could do that would be something useful for our home.

I have many fabrics which I have no idea what to use them for so I grabbed a bunch of bright ones and a white fabric with antique printed motifs. I have no idea what possessed me to buy an entire yard of this. I think I thought it would go with some vintage-looking Parisian-themed fabric I had purchased at another time.

Some of these were from random fat quarter bundles purchased at either WalMart or JoAnn Fabrics early on in my sewing enthusiasm.

I decided to make a set of placemats for our kitchen table that won't matter what gets spilled on them.

I cut 2 1/2"  strips (2 widths of each fat quarter) and sewed light and dark strips together into sets of two strips. I then cut the sets into 2 1/2" widths.

I started laying out the doubled squares thinking I could just flip some upside down so darks and lights would alternate. However the script on the lighter fabric would have been upside down. 

I then had to pick some apart and reposition, and resew them, then continued laying them out in 6 rows and 9 columns. The placemats will be approximately 18" x 12".

I tried to keep the different dark fabrics scattered so the same print wasn't too close to it's twin. I wasn't always successful. I started sewing the pairs in columns.

I got to the layout for the last placemat and realized I had not cut apart a double strip of of one of the dark colours. Not wanting those two fabrics to dominate in that one placemat,  I had to rework the layouts for the other 3 I thought I had completed. This involved picking apart some of the columns I had previously sewn. It was like doing a puzzle. And I wasn't completely successful (looking at the bottom two rows of this one).

But it is good enough for this exercise. 

About pressing: I pressed the columns before stitching them together, pressing to the dark fabrics so that when I sewed the columns I could nest the seams. That worked quite well. When I finished sewing the entire placemat, I pressed the vertical seams open so there wouldn't be a lot of bulk at the intersections. Then turned it over and pressed with my 50/50 mixture of MaryEllen's Best press and water. I use an atomizer bottle purchased on Amazon.

I'm not that thrilled with how this first one turned out but I will carry on. Skip likes the randomness of it. I'll find another weird fabric in my stash for the back and binding. I'll probably quilt the placemats, too.

As I also have a somewhat vast stash of batting, I won't have had to purchase anything to complete the quilt.

In retrospect, watching another video someone made on making a quilt for under $20, I could have turned the white fabric over. The print would not have been so obvious, would have made the darker squares 'pop', and I could have flipped some of the sewn pairs upside down after all.

After doing 4 big loads of laundry today, including queen sheets and 3 pillows, hanging them all on the clothesline, a bunch of shopping at 4 stores, planting our geraniums, re-planting the tomatoes that the effing bunny ate, going back to the store for more dinner ingredients, and preparing and cleaning up after dinner, I didn't have any more energy to start sewing the other 3 placemats together. Hopefully tomorrow.

If I squint, I kinda like the look of them, too.