Six Placemats

This was the big boost to my stash. This Churn Dash placemat is one of my favorites, from a set of six assorted placemats I made at least ten years ago, and a stray Churn Dash pillow.

I washed and ironed all the new fat quarters, and began cutting them up into strips, squares, and triangles - along with other fabrics from the old stash.

The pieces have to be matched up with other pieces that coordinate, even though they're a scrappy jumble of assorted prints. Assembly-line sewing, chaining the smaller pieces together one after the other, goes by quickly.

I made up one block without the checkered four-patch center square, but it just didn't have the same punch, the same zing. They seem to sparkle with the checkered center.These are nine separate Churn Dash blocks. There are nine more blocks to stitch up, for three placemats, six Churn Dash blocks each.

And I'm making eighteen Split Nine blocks for three other placemats. The six new placemats will retire the six old fading ones, whose bindings are fraying. I'll find a way to salvage them, though. I couldn't imagine tossing them out with the trash after all the years they've seen.