This was a simple placemat project for Christina's birthday in 2013. I made two of each of these designs, sized around 14"x18". The panels on each are the same size, just arranged differently. With a seam allowance of 1/2", the larger rectangles are 15"x9" and the green strip is 15"x3".
After sewing the pieces together and ironing the seams, I attached those to the back pieces with right sides together, and leaving a small opening on one side. After turning and clipping corners, I edge-stitched.
Pro tip: if you edge stitch a flat, turned project like this, you don't have to hand-sew that leftover opening closed. It's already sewn down!
Action shot!
I tried out a few combinations of fabrics, but really liked the complicated vines next to the simpler ones, with the matching solid blue. When you're picking multiple fabrics for a project, you should always place them right next to one another, to make sure they'll look good.
To get the size for these, I measured some placemats I have which I liked, and added seam allowance on the edges to determine how large my top and bottom pieces should be before I sewed them together. For each strip, I added some extra seam allowance in the middle of my pattern, to account for sewing them together.
Sewing really is design + basic arithmetic, once you think about it!
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