New placemats

First, the news flash. We have power! I don't know how we got so luck to be one of the first today to get reconnected but we were. There are still 50,000+ people out in my electric service area but that's down 20,000 from yesterday so they are making good progress. The rural roads are still pretty hazardous with trees falling. Chris saw a guy at the grocery store that had a cracked windshield just from a heavy piece of ice falling in it while he was driving. 
Interesting times here in Virginia! But I did get Monday's orders in the mail. I had them packed up before the power went out Monday morning but there was no mail service and we couldn't get out until today. I will even get to do my fabric dyeing tomorrow, only 1 day late.

Today I'm sharing a project that was actually finished last week but I forgot to post about it. During my Christmas mini-cleanup I found this stamped piece of fabric in my postcard supplies. It's a gradient that I stamped and I used most of it in a project that I don't even remember anymore. I had a small chunk left and intended to make postcards with it. That never happened. The fabric is beautiful and kind of precious to me because it took a long time to make. It was time to do something with it.
I also happen to have a bin of dyed napkins. A friend used to do a lot of thrifting and she would periodically bring me bags of vintage linens that she would pick up for practically nothing. I keep them in the dye studio and use them as waste fabric in my gradient dyeing or use them to dump on leftover dye. I have 6 of these napkins (3 in each color) and they matched the leaf prints perfectly. I decided to make placemats with my special fabric.

There wasn't a lot of the leaf print but I was able to get 6 pieces this size. I use old flannel sheets for the batting and leftovers from a dyed quilt back for the backing.

I cut strips of waste fabrics and did a simple Courthouse Steps log cabin design and used some scraps of greens for the binding. I'm really pleased with how these turned out. I'm thinking that I will keep 2 of them and set aside 4 in the gift closet. I think they are pretty enough to be a nice gift.

Tomorrow I'll get back to regularly scheduled activities and posts. I admit that I have kind of enjoyed the past 2 days "off". It was nice to test out our emergency preparedness and, other than needing to stock up on 9v batteries, we did very well and could have easily gone 3 more days, maybe longer. The generator is great but the wood stove is the real hero of the event.