Ask Penny Halgren

Mark a line along the diagonal of each white square, sew a seam ¼” either side of the line and cut along the marked line.

This will give you squares made up of one red triangle and one white triangle.

Sew these squares together in pairs with the white triangles together as shown in the right hand photo.

Sew one pair of squares to opposite sides of the 4-1/2” red square. Note that you are sewing the strip with the white triangle away from the square.

Sew a white 2-1/2” square to either side of a pair of squares to make a 4 patch strip of white square, 2 combined squares, white square. Add one of these strips to the top and bottom of the 4-1/2” red square.

Here is the evening star quilt block complete ready to be made into a place mat.

Sew the remaining red and white 2-1/2” squares together in pairs.

Add a strip of 4 squares to the top and bottom of the evening star quilt block.

Sew a strip of 6 squares to the other two sides of the quilt block.

Place the backing fabric right side down, lay the wadding on top and then lay the evening star quilt block on top of that. Pin and quilt.

I don’t know how well it shows in the photo, but I quilted either side of the diagonals, following the lines of the star.

Trim the excess wadding and backing fabric and bind as follows: this is the same method as for a normal quilt.

To join strips of binding, place the 2 ends at right angles with right sides together. Sew across the diagonal and trim the spare triangle created. That’s shown in the lower of the 2 binding strips in the photo.

This will then open out into a straight strip with a diagonal seam which makes it much less bulky when it is sewn to the patchwork place mat.

The following photos come from several different projects as I wanted to use the ones that showed the procedure most clearly.

Fold the 2-1/2” binding strip in half along its length, creating a strip 1-1/4” wide. Lay one end half way along one edge of the place mat with the fold towards the centre and all raw edges together.

Using a ¼” seam, begin sewing about 2” from the end of the binding (leaving a trailing end) and sew the binding to the place mat.

Stop sewing ¼” from the corner and remove the place mat from the sewing machine.

Fold the binding up away from the place mat at right angles so that it is in line with the next edge to be sewed.

Use your thumb to hold the fabric at the corner in place and fold the binding strip back down to continue along the next edge of the place mat.

Begin sewing from the corner and continue round the place mat until you reach the point you started from.

Stop sewing about 4” from where you began and trim the binding strip so that there is about 1” overlap between the two trailing ends of binding.

Turn under a small hem on one end of the binding – the left hand end in the photo.

Tuck the right hand end of the binding inside the fold of the left hand end so that all the raw edges are concealed.

Pin in place.

Slipstitch along the join between the two ends of binding then flip the fold of the binding over and slipstitch the entire binding to the backing fabric.

Continue making as many place mats as you wish.

That’s the beauty of making your own place mats: you can make as many as you are likely to need, so you are not stuck with either four or six as you would be if you bought a set of placemats.

Begin by making six evening star quilt blocks as above for the place mats.

In order to join the quilt blocks together in a column for the quilted table runner, join together the 2-1/2” squares to make a 4 square row of red, white, white, red.

Sew one of these strips at the top and bottom of the column and between each block. You will need seven of these 4 patch strips.

Cut the 6-1/2” red square in half along the diagonal.

Place one triangle at each end of the table runner and sew in place using a ¼” seam.
That’s the quilted table runner top complete.

Prepare the backing fabric and wadding: you will need rectangles 10” by 70”. Lay the backing fabric with right side down, smooth gently and lay the wadding on top. Smooth gently and lay the table runner top down.

If you don’t have wadding long enough, you can sew 2 pieces together.

Make sure you have straight edges butting up against each other and slipstitch along the join.

Don’t stitch too close to the edges of the wadding because it may just pull away in your hand. Try to keep your stitches at least ¼” from the edge.

As this is quite a small area to be quilted, I just quilted in lines across the edges of the star, outlining the square in the middle.

Trim the excess wadding and backing fabric.

The binding of the quilted table runner is the same as for the place mats but with the difference that not all the corners are right angles, although the method of folding the binding is very similar.

When you reach one of the corners at either end of the table runner, still fold the binding away from the runner in line with the next edge to be sewn, but you will see that the binding is not at right angles to the table runner.

Fold back down along the next edge of the table runner and continue sewing.

When you have finished, flip the binding over as before and slipstitch in place.