A little stitchy stitchy...

Dave's isn't the only July baby in my circle.

This crazy lady celebrates hers a few days before Dave. And when you get to our age, and have known each other for eleventy-billion years (okay, 25...), finding the perfect present can get a little tough. But while I was racking my brain last month, Mom happened to hop on Ravelry post a picture of some quilted place mats she was thinking of making. Sam noticed and mentioned how much she liked them.... and the seed of an idea was planted. The pattern was something easy enough that even I couldn't mess it up too badly. So I went stash diving.

Now my quilting stash isn't very big. Mostly leftovers from the Kitten Kaboodles I have made and the odd fat quarter I've bought on a whim. With money tight, I was really hoping I'd have enough of something that looked relatively decent together, without having to hit up the fabric store.

I was in luck! The mice and white cats at the top were a full yard each - singles bought at Walmart ages ago with the intention of making myself a Kaboodle. The greens and teal pieces were left over from other Kaboodles. The black and white pawprints were random fat quarters (because... pawprints!!!) and the pink came from who knows where! But there was just enough of it for...

...five 5" squares of each of the bottom row. The larger singles were used for sashing and backing

There wasn't enough fabric to do them all the same (you need about a yard and a half to do all the backings the same), so I alternated. Pink-framed ones got white backing, and vice versa.

I enlisted Mom's help for the really tricky bit - the quilting! She's been practicing her free-motion quilting, and placemats are the perfect way to build up to quilting and actual quilt! She did a fantastic job. And the birthday girl loved them (especially because they matched the decor of her camping trailer! Bonus!)

Of course, this small success has me thinking about doing some more quilting... I do have those fat quarters Mom gave me for my birthday....