Telopea

As a gift for our wonderful friends Haydn and Kylie, I couldn't imagine not making something that celebrates Australia's beautiful native plants and their unique colours and Emma Jean Jansen's terra australis range of fabrics have provided the perfect inspiration.

They can be purchased from plenty of fabric stores around Australia and internationally (find your nearest stockist here).

Haydn and Kylie love the Australian bush and environment and have a small, round dining table, so I've made them a set of four square placemats that will fit the table nicely and add some fresh, terra australis (aka, great 'south land') colour.

The waratah fabric from this line was easily my favourite from the range and I think this placemat, with it's fussy cut waratah (telopea) is my favourite (seen in this photo taken on a lichen encrusted bench seat at the Australian National Botanic Gardens).

I used my walking foot to quilt the majority of this placemat with the exception of a small amount of free-motion on the waratah flower (even after some practice, i'm still a stickler for my walking foot...i just can't seem to get the tidy finish i like with free-motion!!!....humph....more practice needed).

The inspiration for the design came from the Mondrian block designed by Jamie Moilanen (p. 116 of Modern Blocks compiled by Susanne Woods).

I also made one of my favourite blocks, based on strings and used my walking foot to quilt 1/4 inch lines that follow the strings. Of course after making the string block, i had some triangles made up of strings to also use, so these were used for the next placemat (RHS of photo below) to top and bottom my next favourite fabric from the terra australis line, the spinning gum print.

Again, i used my walking foot to quilt straight, 1/4 lines across the placemat.

For the fourth placemat in the set (RHS of photo above), i used a drunkards path template to put together a block that i've laid out to include some circles and some randomness based on Angela Pingel's layout of her Last Call block (p.100 of Modern Blocks compiled by Susanne Woods). Joined spirals are my go-to quilting for circles at the moment, which i drew onto the top before quilting using a water erasable marker pen. It does take a little messing about to get the spirals to join neatly, but i really do like the end result.

So, Haydn and Kylie, i do hope you'll like, enjoy and get plenty of use out of these placemats. It's been such a joy making something just for you! Thank you for being such great, faithful friends!

Linking up with:
- Amanda Jean for Finish it Up Friday
- Gemma for I Quilt Thursday at Pretty Bobbins and
- Lorna for Lets Bee Social