Take Four Placemats

 

I don't remember how many years ago I purchased this placemat pattern. It's fairly simple, made from 4 different fat quarters and offers 5 different choices of layout for the placemats. I chose variation 2. Because I had a bundle of 5 fat quarters, I also chose to make 5 placemats. 

I like this set because they "match" as they all feature the same fabrics, but each one is unique. The pattern offers two different methods of finishing the placemats, either the "pillowcase" method (front and back, right sides together, including a layer of batting, stitch all the way around, leaving an opening to turn right side out, and then quilting), or the "binding" method (making a quilt sandwich in the usual way, quilting and then binding the edges). Obviously, I chose the binding method, and I also chose to quilt them on my longarm. As I've said before, if it's big enough to fit on the longarm, I will quilt it on the longarm. I used one complete piece of backing. Because the fabric is lemon-themed, I chose the Lemon Drop pantograph by Melonie Caldwell from Urban Elementz,

and a bright yellow Glide thread for the quilting. 
If I had chosen to quilt on m domestic machine or use the pillowcase method, I could have used 1 fat quarter for each placemat.

Normally, I do not use Walmart fabric in my quilts. Most of it is thin and inferior quality, though there is some that is reasonable quality. However, in making something other than quilts, like wallhangings or gift baskets or placemats, I am not necessarily so fussy. I have admired this fat quarter bundle at Walmart for a while. I love the lemon theme. It's so fresh looking. So I decided that this was a good project to use it in. They also sell individual fat quarters, so I used 3 of the sliced lemons for the binding. If I had only made 4 placemats, I would have needed just 2, but I couldn't quite make it around the 5th placemat using 2 fat quarters. 

Not sure if I will keep this set or gift it, but I will say one thing: quilted placemats are much nicer than plastic ones, in my opinion, at least.