Loving Garden at Midnight Placemat

Squeaking in here with my favorite (only) finish for February. Probably one of my favorite placemats ever, but it was not without some dithering, head-scratching, messing up, and almost tears. But let's admire it first, and then I'll tell you about it.

This placemat started with a free pattern I saw on Bethanne Nemesh's White Arbor Quilting Instagram account around Valentine's Day. (She is an accomplished artist and quilter who you might know for her awesome, unique patterns for temperature quilt blocks among other amazing things.) As a distraction from recovery from hip surgery, she had made a nine-block quilt called Loving Garden with her gorgeous quilting, and then she wrote up a free pattern for just one block along with pictured suggestions for several layouts of multiple blocks to make a whole quilt. I was immediately taken with the pattern--and it was perfect as I only needed one block for my placemat. (The pattern is now available on her shop site for a nominal fee.)

First, I gathered up a bunch of possible fabrics. I wanted the colors to be light and airy, so I pulled all of my pinks, light blues/aquas, and yellow greens. 

I tried lots of combinations and narrowed my choices for the pinks and greens, but no matter how I laid them out, I just wasn't happy with the aqua. There just didn't seem to be enough of a contrast between it and the greens. (This is where the dithering part of the project came in.) Then sometime (maybe the middle of the night?) I thought, why not dark blue for the background? I would make a Loving Garden at Midnight block instead. And yes, I had the perfect tiny print, leftover from my miniature-making days in the 1980s. I laid it out and knew it was just what I wanted for contrast with the pinks and greens. And really practical, too, since it was for a placemat. (Can you imagine what that aqua would have looked like with spaghetti sauce or some other food spill on it?)

I got started sewing the heart blocks and the stem parts.

Oh, and time out to admire my sewing setup for this little project. My layout table was the ottoman in my living room.

And my pressing station was my couch. Nothing like sitting on the floor to work with fabric and press blocks. But the weather was frigid and the living room was the warmest place to work, so why not? (Ooh, looks like that ironing board needs a new cover.)

OK, back to the placemat. I dithered some more about the light greens. I was pretty limited in the range of fabrics I had without buying more. I thought I was really committed to the vine print you see second from the bottom. I tried it one way.

And then another.

And then, finally tossed it aside for a different green,

which meant I also had to change some of the stem greens around to balance the colors and values. But I finally got to an arrangement that I liked. 

After all of that, there was a bit of a problem. There were some discrepancies in the pattern that caused the head scratching I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Some of the pieces didn't quite fit. There were some size errors in the cutting instructions and graphics labels. I caught some early on, but did have to recut the last narrow sashing around the leaves. Not a big deal, but it could have been more of a problem if I had cut out fabric for multiple blocks. Anyway, after the head scratching was over, I had a block I was very pleased with. 

The next morning, I decided that I needed to contact Bethanne about the discrepancies. Before I got a chance to write her, I got an email from her with a correction for one of them. I decided to double check my measurements and the cutting instructions and drew them out on graph paper, and then I wrote her to let her know about the others. I felt kind of bad because I knew the pattern was a gift, and wasn't meant to be a formal full-fledged quilt pattern.  Bethanne was very gracious about it and said she would incorporate my corrections. I know that there are sometimes errors in quilt patterns. It just happens. 

I added three pieces of background to finish my placemat--a strip across the top, and two wide ones along the side--to get it to the size I wanted (about 14 by 18 inches after quilting). I had a piece of old fabric that worked perfectly for the backing, and since it was also dark blue, I decided to just do stipple quilting in dark blue as it wouldn't really show much. 

I used green thread to free motion quilt the leaves and stem, which turned out just OK as I haven't done a lot of free motion quilting besides stippling in quite awhile. Then, because I am an admirer of Bethanne's quilting, I thought I'd try some fancy free motion in the heart shapes. Oh, boy. Here's where the almost tears comes in. It was a disaster. So much so that I don't even have photos. There was a lot of picking out of stitches. And then, more disaster. When I  pulled a thread, it cut a couple threads of the fabric and made a tiny hole!!! Waahhh! (almost). Luckily, I have some experience with holes as I used to quilt/repair fragile antique tops for a woman who rescued them. I tucked some really thin fusible web through the hole and pressed it. Then I needed to figure out a way to quilt it to make sure it stayed secure. I abandoned the freemotion for walking foot plaid and made sure that multiple quilt lines crossed the fragile area. I'm happy to say it worked (even though burying thread ends was te.di.ous). Here is a close-up.

The problem area was near the V at the top of the heart. 

Oh, and one more thing I messed up on: When I cut the mottled navy fabric for binding, I cut it at 2 5/8" instead of my more usual, 2 1/2", thinking I'd make the binding just a bit wider. Then when I sewed it on, I used a 1/4" seam instead of the generous 3/8" I was planning, so now the back of the binding is super wide. Oh well. 

So that's the story of a more adventurous placemat than I had planned. I did tell Bethanne that I would write about my experience. I felt that I needed to do that because I wanted to share my enthusiasm for the pattern but also be upfront in my experience to ensure that if others use it, it will be reliable for making a quilt. In case you have downloaded the pattern, do check to make sure you have the corrected version. Here are things to note:

1. The large heart squares are cut at 3 1/2 inches.

2. The larger background squares on the stem section are cut at 3 inches.

3. The narrow background spacers along the largest leaves are cut at 1 by 8 1/2 inches and 1 by 9 inches.

  

I'm still enthusiastic about the design and think I may make another block--or maybe a whole quilt. Little did I know that I would make multiple mistakes moving forward in finishing the placemat. Quilting is always an adventure in one way or another. We all make mistakes and they are almost always fixable in one way or another. 

I'm linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for Favorite Finish February and with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap.

Keep quilting; keep being kind to yourself about your mistakes. It's all part of quilting life. 

(Just a reminder: I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores, I'm just documenting what I used or liked, not officially promoting anything. )