Sewing for Montserrat: Placemats for Kristina

This is the final post about the sewing I did for my recent trip to Montserrat - a set of 8 embroidered placemats for my lovely sister-in-law Kristina.

I knew I wanted to make Kris something for her birthday.  Something she would use and like, but something different than I have done for other members of my family.  I settled on making 8 placemats, that would all work together but be slightly different.  So I went with the following fabric:

For each set of fabrics the floral print was the front, the two-tone almost solid fabric was the back and the polka dot fabric was for 2 different bindings.   In total there would be 4 different fabric combinations on the placemats (each floral print w/ 2 different bindings). 

When I told my husband about my idea for these he loved it and suggested that I embroider their names on the placemats (including one with Einstein the dog's name on it).  At first I was skeptical.  I didn't know if i could do it, I didn't know if they would like it, but I decided to try it and I am so glad that I did. 

As a side note one of my nephews thought that Einstein's placemat should go underneath his food and water dishes and proceeded to place it there - after much convincing from his mother he changed his mind and decided that the table is where it could stay.  

Since there is only 5 people + 1 dog in their family that left two placemats unembroidered for guests or spares whatever they would like for a total of 8 settings. 

To keep these quilted I did a little FMQ on some of the flowers and plants in coordinating thread.  I only did it in select spaces because doing the whole thing that way (1) would have used a ton of thread (2) was unnessary to hold them together and (3) it would have detracted from the beautiful fabrics on the front.

I machine bound these so they could be thrown in the wash and would be very sturdy for years to come.  Sometimes it is nice to work on a simpler or easier project, and take a break from a large complicated quilt.  Kristina loved them and I hope you like them too!  

Have a wonderful weekend.

Elise