When placemats become a queen sized quilt!

When placemats become a queen-sized quilt . . .

Let’s be honest: We all have stash. Some of us have even been known to buy the same thing twice, forgetting we already had it. (At least it’s proof that we really loved whatever it was.)

Maybe it was a book or a pattern, even some fabric. We love it, but we can’t “get at” whatever it is right away, so we buy for the future, tuck it away, and then later find the duplicate.

Last week, I decided to clean out my cubbies and prioritize projects and count how many
projects I had fabric for. I found 2 Christmas placemat kits, then another 2 of the same kit, and then horror of horrors ---a third set of 2 MORE of the same placement Christmas kit! The kit included a panel with six 11.5-inch Christmas scenes. So, I wound up with 6 panels of 6 scenes each or 36 scenes! I don’t have that large of a family to make placemats for . . . . so now what to do?

Eventually I determined the only way to use that much fabric up was to make a queen-sized Christmas quilt instead of placemats. The quilt got finished yesterday, but I still have enough panels and fabric to make curtains to go with the quilt. How many of you can boast of having Christmas curtains?? I’m just going to pretend I planned to make Christmas curtains all along!!

(Here's how I think it all happened. Last fall I made some Christmas placemats for the store and really loved the fabric and the placemats, so I decided to buy a couple of kits for myself. I never got to sewing the kits before Christmas, but as the days counted down to when the store would close for a week, I must have decided that maybe I should buy a couple more kits (matching table runner, napkins?).  Fast forward to spring 2025 and that same kit went on sale, so forgetting that I had purchased the extra two kits December 23, 2024, I bought two more. I stashed them in a cubby, but not the same cubby as the other kits. So, I was unaware of what a trove of the same fabric I had!)

Cindy Ellenbecker