Time to Play!

Now that I'm done with Halloween costumes, I've had a chance to breath.  The best part is, I have no projects that HAVE to be done...well I do have a baby quilt I need to get started, but they don't know I'm making it so I'm not in a huge hurry.

Earlier in the week I decided my almost 2 year old grandson needed a placemat.  He's such a messy eater, aren't they all at that age?  The problem I had is even with a regular placemat he would still get the area between him and the placemat dirty.  For some reason I could never keep the placemat at the edge of the table.

So I decided he needed a placemat with a little flap that went over the edge of the table.  I made my own design and made it smaller than the typical placemat.  His bowls and plates are smaller than adults and the big ones just looked way to big for him.

Right now he's in love with Mickey Mouse so I found some cute fabric at Walmart.  This was an experiment so I figured cheap fabric was the way to go.  But I've said it before, I'm sometimes pleasantly surprised that I find better quality fabric than I expect at Walmart.  Now, I haven't washed it yet, so we'll see how it holds up.

I bought a yard of each Mickey fabric and two yards of the black polk a dot fabric.  I plan to make different designs just to practice making placemats.  This was my first placemat and I was surprised how quick and easy it was, without a pattern no less!

I was surprised how easy it was to come up with my own pattern.  The little flap worked exactly how I envisioned it would.  It's definitely sparked something in me to branch out and not just follow patterns like I typically do.

You will notice it is already dirty in the above picture.  I couldn't wait for him to try it out and forgot to take a picture before he used it! From the looks of it, I need to get busy making placemats, we'll probably need a clean one for every meal!  Let's see that's three a day for seven days...hmmm 21 placemats??? 


I've told myself for years that I'm not creative, I just like making things.  Maybe, just maybe there is a little creativity in me!  So I've set a goal.  Before the end of the year, I'll design another pattern.  I'm not sure what that will be yet, but I have a few ideas swirling around in my head.

Have you made your own design?  What was your process?

Happy Sewing!

Lori