I decided to enter this week's Whiplash competition at Whipup after seeing Weeks Ringle's post about "aichaku" and making your own quilted placemats. I have also been itching to do some patchwork, and thought this was a project I could manage under the time constraints. The theme was "show your surly side", so I came up with some "rules of the table" such as-- "eat your peas," "sit up straight," "say please and thank you," and "no elbows on the table." The "rules" are pretty much a joke, because, well, we have a two year old, and pretty much anything goes at our table. Back when Elliot was in his throwing food stage (funny how these stages come and go and you don't really even notice that they're gone) once I even tried throwing food back at him to see how he would react. He seemed a little startled, and we had a good laugh over it.

 

I transferred words onto fabric with Bubble Jet Set, printed them out and pieced them into my design. This mat is actually for the center of the table to keep things such as the creamer, sugar, and napkin holder to add a little character and color. I'd like to make a complete set of placemats to go with it as time allows. This was a fun, fast project. I used Weeks' "pillowcase binding" technique which I LOVED because I sometimes hate binding quilts. I was a little disappointed not to see the cute spotty fabric that I'd chosen to bind it with (didn't think about that!), but the ease of the technique FAR outweighed not seeing the spotty fabric.

I'm really happy with the results, and look forward to seeing all of the entries to the competition, but most importantly, to using my surly new mat.

 

To see all the photos, look here...