Reuse Recipe: Fabric Scraps

Aaron made me this gorgeous new dining room table over the summer. He used mostly salvage lumber from Community Forklift. He carefully designed it so that our black dining chairs could tuck under completely on all sides.  I requested a farmhouse style table so it has breadboard ends (hard to see in this picture), a lot of tongue in groove, and nice straight lines. Here it is the day that we brought it in from the garage:

Whitewashed Farmhouse Table

 I love it! I have been using a vinyl table cloth to protect it when we do art projects, but I hate to cover up the whitewash the rest of the time. We have been using plastic placemats from Ikea to protect it from the kiddos food messes, but those are a pain to rinse off after every meal and I wanted some that I could just throw in the washing machine.  I decided that fabric placemats (soon to be spotted with food) did not deserve to be made with anything fancy.

I dumped out my scrap bag and tested out the quilt-as-you-go fabric method for the first time.
These two pictures/sites were my inspiration:
Log Cabin Style Placemat
Mug Rug - Quilt as you go Tutorial

I made 18 quilted placemats so that I would not have to worry about washing them everyday. There are 2 groups - yellow, grey, and black made from leftovers of my little sister's wedding quilt mostly

Quilted placemats after first washing

And the second group of bright tropical colors are fabric remnants from pieces picked up on my travels

All the backs are the same fabric - in case we have a big group over for dinner and want matching placemats.  The fabric is called "Sewing Seeds" by J. Wecker Frisch.  I LOVE this fabric because of its old timey style, but then I noticed that the text includes inspirational scriptures. Awesome! That way you can read your scriptures while you eat your cereal.

Sewing Seeds Seed Catalog Cotton Fabric in Cream designed by J. Wecker Frisch