Table mats

After the tea cozy, I decided to dive into my bag of UFOs and finish up some small projects. My darling friend, Satoko, is staying with us for the week (in the same room where my sewing machine is set up) so I thought it would be better to have some small hand projects to work on instead of a)barging into her space and using the machine, or b) giving up quilting for the week, because I definately feel like I'm on a roll and if neglected, this creative energy will surely leave me.
I found two sets of table mats (large coasters) which were done all but the binding. Before we moved to Massachusetts two years ago, I was seriously contemplating staying at home and trying to quilt full time. I thought a life of custom orders and craft fairs would be fabulous and just what I needed. So that summer before the move, I whipped up several small projects and took them in their portable state with us when we went to Athens for 6 weeks, hoping to finish them up and have the start of an inventory. Haha. Such good intentions. First, those 6 weeks in Athens were nothing like I had imagined. Although my creative urges were strong, I was unable to produce any finished objects that summer. Then once we moved, I quickly discovered that I couldn't afford not to work, and it would be much harder than I thought to "get in" to the craft circut up here. Now I feel like I'm more settled in the area, but I'm no longer interested in selling my wares (though etsy is tempting). Anyway, these cute table mats needed just 20 minutes a piece and thankfully, that's exactly the amount of time I had to give them.


I love this pattern with the green leaves on black. I made a bunch of these-- mats, pouches, stuff like that. All are in the UFO bag, perhaps you'll see more of them later on..

I made the orange/yellow set in March '04 and we've used them in the living room/kitchen as coasters ever since. They weren't UFOs, but I thought I'd include them with this post anyway. I think these were the first large coasters I made after being inspired by the amazing Helen Thompson in Atlanta. (more on her in a later post..)