Dresden placemats

I've finally finished my mother-in-law's Christmas gift! Only 4 months late, lol, but better late than never, right?

Last fall, when I was working on my Hexie Rainbow quilt, my MIL pointed to a lemony-yellow hexie and told me that she'd love to have placemats made with that shade of yellow. A little later, she pointed out a lime green hexie and said that green would be perfect with the lemon yellow for a set of placemats. I can recognize a hint that broad, so I asked what colour she'd want with them 😊 She picked navy and maybe white, if the design needed another colour.

Then I debated what design to use until the middle of December, so I knew this particular gift would be late, though I didn't expect it to be this late. In the end, I came up with this dresden design because I wanted to make more dresdens after making my Dresden Log Cabin back in November.

My MIL is definitely right - those three colours look fabulous together! All three are Northcott solids and I used Warm and Natural batting along with Aurifil thread.

I started by quilting the center of the dresden with Aurifil 2785 and then I outlined the dresden twice, once right at the edge and once ¼" away. The swirl hooks in the background were a lot of fun to quilt, but it was hard to squeeze them in some of the small spaces. That's where my love of tiny quilting came in handy, lol.

FYI, the placemat is flat, the brick wall behind it isn't

I wasn't sure what to quilt in the dresden itself at this point, so I quilted the borders next. Simple back and forth lines in the green and wishbones in the yellow add wonderful texture. Both are done with Aurifil 1231 (spring green) which had the remarkable ability to look yellow on the green fabric and green on the yellow fabric 😊

Then, thanks to a Pinterest search, I found this quick and simple, but oh-so-pretty design for in the dresden, which is also done with 1231.

I love a solid for quilt backings! I backed the placemats with the navy, even though it looks lighter in this picture. Isn't all of that quilted texture amazing??

I love the Aurifil 1231 on the navy 😊

I love my labels from Finer Ribbon, but I don't like how they flap on smaller projects. I decided to try stitching them into the corners of the placemats and I'm so pleased with how they look. In fact, I may start attaching them to all of my quilts this way, not just the small ones.

We'll be seeing my MIL this weekend when we're out of town for Zach's basketball games, so I'll get to deliver the placemats to her. I hope she likes them as much as I do!