Placemats from nowhere...

Here are 2 of my 5 new tablemats.  They look super on the table (they now each have a bow on one corner too) and everyone likes them which is a major plus!  Table mats may not seem very exciting to some, so I should explain why they are are important enough to me to get in the way of making cool stuff like stuffed bunnies...  It's quite simple, I have frequent headaches, and a large glass topped dining room table on a tiled floor next to a huge window with not much soft furnishing to soak up the resounding "CLANG!!!" of plates and cups plonked onto it by the less sensitive members of the household.  The noise bounces off the afore mentioned hard surfaces and amplifies into a brain mushing sensation when it hits my ears....I can't take it I tell you!!!  Placemats it had to be, pronto!  

But how?  With no batting, no backing fabric...and no spare money to get such things even if I wanted to bother having to drive off somewhere to get them (which I don't...)  Hmm.  Here's what I used - 

1. Batting - cut up one raggedy stained old bath towel I've been looking for an excuse to destroy
2. Backing Fabric - nasty old jeans!  I don't care if the seams show on the back 'cuz they weren't quite wide enough, they're free!
3. Front Fabric - I am fortunate to have very nice relatives, this lovely fabric was a gift from my sister in law
4. Ribbon and Bows Trim - Thanks Mama!

That black and white leaf pattern fabric is just wonderful and reminds me of the many Japanese fabrics I have been admiring recently.  However on reading the name of the print company on the remaining edge, it says "Cranston Print Works Company - Millworth Fabrics - USA".  I found the Cranston website but this pattern seems to be discontinued, bah.  I have saved a little bit of it for something else as I feel it deserves a more exciting project sometime.  Maybe a stuffed kitty cat with a little white face and pink nose and big whiskers.....ooh!  Watch this space!

Here's the back of the place mats so you can see how the cut-up jeans look crappy...hah!  I liked that concentric circle design for the quilting....now if I could only sew a straight line...............