Snowman Placemats

Well, here is the first finish of the 26 projects I've brought down with me!  This was its picture when I snapped all 26 for the "Just a few projects to complete this winter..." post.

Here are two of the placemats at our little bistro set on the balcony:

And here are all four on our table!  That's an old stack 'n whack tablecloth I made using Bethany Reynolds' LeMoyne Star pattern out of her Magic Stack-n-Whack Quilts book, but the setting is my own design.  I like how the red quilt makes the heart on the snowmen pop.

I decided to quilt a different design in each of the plain sections of the placemats.  The background behind each snowman I just stippled with a snowflake hanging down every so often.  I used a terrific Madeira thread, Polyneon, that has a real shimmer to it.  When I took a Joan Statz class years ago, she praised that very quality of this thread, and, as the store had it on sale, I bought a few spools (1000m each) to finish the Joan Statz quilt, as well as for future use.

Poinsettia - this is the first one I quilted. I drew it in my sketchbook first to get the feel of free-motion quilting it. I still might go back in and do Leah Day's Checkerboard design... Note to self: maybe not such a good idea to follow the lines in the fabric as guides when they weren't cut out straight!

A rather gooby snowman - his hat did not work but his arms, buttons and scarf did! I love my "wind" swirls! The wavy lines are supposed to represent snowdrifts.

For the wreath I traced a circle with an erasable marker and then just free-motioned the feathers around it.  I'm really comfortable with feathers now since I took Angela Walters' class on Craftsy.  I did a stipple with a random holly leaf here and there behind the wreath.

This was the second one I did, just free-motioned a feather down the centre, and then some randomly spaced straight and wavy lines.

And here they are, rolled up.  I've seen several fiished quilts rolled up and photographed on various blogs, so thought I'd do the same.  Looks cool, and this is the way I've stored all my small quilts over the past many years of quilting.  I haven't washed these yet, but I expect they'll crinkle up nicely.