reblog!

This is such a delicious post by Carly I thought you might like to read it over here at Umbrella Prints too:

First Day Back

Term starts for Lily today but the poor little sod has a tummy bug... so to cheer her up I patched up a new placemat for her using the fabric she designed in the holidays (her's is the big peachy blossom centre, so pretty).

We did sunprinting with Inkodye in the studio... the Holiday Workshop children painted their fabric (lovely UmbrellaPrints' Natural Hemp/Cotton) with a selection of colourful Inkodye, placed cut paper shapes ontop and then waited a few minutes for it to expose in the sun.. we had so much fun!

The rest of the placemat has been made with trimmings of Umbrella Prints trimmings... I keep every teensy scrap ...some have been dyed too. Which reminds me .. Amy & I will be announcing the 2012 Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition very soon .. this week perhaps.

I will have to make some more placemats I just love them... love making them.. not only are they terribly useful & pretty but they are also fun, quick & simple and they use up scraps!.. you can't get much better crafting than that.

You can find the placemat instructions in my book .. but it's really simple.

All you need are:

    Enough scraps to patch together a top piece that measures approx. 30cm X 40cm

    A basecloth piece to match 30cm x 40cm

    Some natural cotton batting 30cm x 40cm

    And your scissors, iron & sewing machine (however you can sew this by hand)

1. Patch your top piece

2. Place the top piece right sides facing to the basecloth

3. Place the facing fabrics ontop of the batting and pin to keep in place (mind you this is so small I can never be bothered with the pins)

4. Now start sewing half way down the right hand edge of the sandwiched fabrics, using a 5mm seem allowance.... keep going all the way around but leave a 4-5cm gap so that you can turn it right sides out

5. Before you turn it right sides out and iron it nice and flat .. remember to trim the edges and clip the corners so they don't bunch

6. Now that it is nice and flat we're ready to sew the gap closed and quilt it all in one go... yep!

Start sewing at the begining of the gap, nice and close to the edge with a 3-4mm seem allowance and keep going all the way around .... right round again until you are approx. 3cm in from the right hand edge so that you can start quilting vertically.

Once you get to the top of your first quilted line, instead of cutting the thread and starting again.. turn the placemat 90 degrees and keep going along the top seem a few more centimetres then sew your way back down to the bottom seem etc.. until you are all done.. you probably need to sew 8-10 verticle quilt lines. Voila!