black cats who lunch

I got to use my newly made Halloween placemats with a lady who lunches yesterday.

The plan was to go out to lunch, but she apparently has the directional sense of both Jen and Susie because it took three calls on her cell phone to get her here. Since much of our time was spent on the IL tollway system we altered our plans and ate here. Luckily, she isn't picky and didn't mind the leftovers I had in the fridge. I figured serving them on china and the placemats would fancy them up a bit.

The mats were easy if you want to make a set. They're just two rectangles of fabric sewn right sides together with a 6 inch opening on the side. Trim the corners and turn them right sides out. Cut a piece of timtex or peltex (or some other heavy duty interfacing) to the exact finished size of the placemat(this means you've elimated the seam allowances on the timtex piece). Roll the timtex up and slide it into the opening. Fiddle around with it on the inside to get it to lay flat and push into the corners. I also put all the seam allowances toward the back of the placemat, on the bottom of the timtex. Fold in the open side over the timtex and then edgestitch all the way around the mat closing up the opening. I ran a second row of edgestitching 1/4" in from the first. The only difficult part of the project is manhandling the timtex into position. It should fit really snugly into the edges.

If you did sets of these in fabrics to match friends' and relatives' kitchens they'd be great Christmas gifts.