Harvest Placemats

I made 6 of these for my mom for her birthday.
I used a mixture of Thimbleberries and some other fall-ish prints for these placemats. Here's a general rundown of how I made them:

For EACH placemat ou'll need:
*55 3.5" squares of autumn prints
*2-1.5"x13.5" strips and 2-1.5"x 9.5" strips of a dark brown mottled for center strips
*More dark brown mottled for bias binding (I used 1 yard total for 6 placemats and have LOTS leftover)
*7.5" x 13.5" light brown color for center
*18" X 25" piece of cotton batting for EACH placemat
*an old CD or DVD
*quilting chalk or marking pencil

Back:
*Take 35 of your 3.5" Autumn print squares and sew them together in 7 rows of 5.
*Rows 1,3,5, and 7 press UP - Rows 2, 4, and 6 Press DOWN
*Sew these together and press to make a 15" x 21" rectangle for back.

Front:
*Take your two 1.5"x13.5" dark brown strips and sew them to opposite sides of your light brown 7.5"x13.5" center rectangle - Press
*Sew your two 1.5"x9.5" to remaining sides of center rectangle and press.
*Sew together 4 rows of 5 3.5" Autumn print squares
*Sew 1st two rows on the 13.5" sides, press - then sew remaining 2 rows.

Quilting:





*Layer Back, batting and front and Press
*Baste with your preference, I used 3 pins in the center - and 6 on the edges - it doesn't need much
*Start your quilting on the front by Stitching in-the-ditch around your 1" dark brown - on both sides
*Now take your chalk if needed -mark, then quilt a grid in the center.


Scallops:

*Look at the chalk marks on the photos.. See there's going to be two humps on the long sides and 1 hump on the short sides.
*Use old CD to mark scallops with chalk - Start by tracing the CD to make OVER humps.. then when you have your OVER humps, go back and align the CD with the marks to make the UNDER humps. The picture explains it a little better.
* Quilt along your scallop line and also quilt aprox 1" below it.
*Now to finish your quilting I quilted diagonal double lines at every inch - You can align your ruler up with the corners of the border squares - You can start with a single diagonal grid and when that's finished, quilt a little less than a 1/4" away from it. OR you could use a double needle if you have that option.

Finish:
*Cut just around the scallop line leaving 1/4" - Bind with TRUE BIAS binding.
*Wash and dry your placemats for that beautiful vintage look ; )

VOILA! you're finished - yeah I know I don't use EQ7 (not yet anyway) so good old graph paper does the trick for me.
My mom purchased some vintage-looking scalloped and quilted placemats a few months back and I got so jealous of them! They were so cute but were totally something I could make. I knew I could do better - and these weren't mass produced and from another country. ;c)