Autumn place mats

For a long time I have bought place mats that are a standard size, standard weave.  I have purchased several different colors over the years so that I could have a bit of variety.  Suddenly they were getting old, stains that wouldn’t come out, colors that were unappealing, or I was just tired of them after 10 to 20 years of use.  When traveling in October we were eating at a private home and there was a different type of place mat put out on the dinner table.  I began thinking out of the box and a new sewing project was born.

It was fall/autumn and the leaves were on the ground.  I was out raking them.  We have a lot trees on the lot, some are native trees, some we have planted ourselves and watched them grow.  I think well when doing routine jobs like ironing and raking.  Why not make a series of place mats, one for each season of the year?  We are usually only two at the table, but with two children or guests, I decided I should have four place mats for each season.

But the next design question was what should the picture be?  As I was raking, I gathered some of the leaves and took them inside.  Most leaves turn a dull yellow or turn brown very quickly.  I wanted ones that had a nice shape.  In the end I chose the maple leaf (dear to my heart as a Canadian), the red brown of the beech leaves (which are mostly on the tree all winter) and the yellow of the birch leaves.   I decided on two each of the maple leaves, six each of the beech leaves and many of the birch leaves. I made cardboard outlines of the tree leaves I had chosen.  Most leaves have rough edges, but mine became relatively smooth as there would be many to cut out and sew on.

Which colors?  Which materials?  What would be the background?  How realistic should it be? So I went into my boxes of scrap materials which are mostly sorted by color.  The standard colors of fall are red, orange and yellow.  I found some orange that could be the background.  I found many different yellows and it took awhile to find which ones would work.  I don’t have much brown, so the beech leaves ended up being a dark red. The maple leaves are usually yellow once they have fallen off the tree.  A bit of hunting came up with something that worked well.  The birch leaves are small in comparison to the other two and I had decided to have a lot of them, in three different materials.  I always find this the fun part of designing, but it isn’t always easy to make the decisions.  Then there was to find something for the filling and the backing. But eventually the decisions were made.

Each placemat had the same number of leaves, but they were placed differently, so that each place mat is unique.  The maple leaves were placed first, then the beech leaves and finally the birch leaves were scattered to fill up the spaces.  There was no extra quilting, except the sewing on of the leaves.

I have done quite a few applique pictures in the last year or so, and as usual, the sewing of the pictures always takes a lot longer than anticipated.  Though I was able to use only scrap materials for the place mats, I had to buy more thread of the right colors.  But in the process I also used up several old spools of thread.  I think I ended up with about eight empty spools by the end of the project.

The place mats were ready by Christmas Day, a little out of season as the first snow had already come.  But we are enjoying the bright colors during the winter months.

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Over mange år har jeg kjøpt spisebrikker i mange forskjellige farger, men etterhvert ble de utslitt.  Jeg hadde lyst til å lage noe selv.

Mens jeg var ute å rake løve om høsten, kom jeg på idéen til å lage en serie av brikker, fire for hver sesong.  Jeg begynte med høsten.  Jeg tok inn flere blad fra hagen og til slutt valgte blad fra lønn, bøk og bjørk.

Jeg har mange esker med stoff rester så da var det bare å finne frem, gul, oransje og rød. De fire brikkene ble litt forskjellige.  Ingen to er like, men de er komponert av de samme mengde blad.  Det er godt med fargerike brikker på vinterstid.