Candle Mats

As I shared yesterday, my goal today was to create Candle Mat's that could be used as gifts, my inspiration for this was a Pinterest pin of an Etsy product (which if you don't want to make yourself you can buy for about $15). 

After purchasing some white fabric and navy fabric I decided to make my candle mats with the navy snowman fabric I had been using in my holiday projects. I love this fabric because it's holiday but doesn't scream Christmas. 

To make my candle mats I wanted to do a 10.5 by 10.5 square, and I didn't want to have to make 8 half square triangles per candle mat, so I made large pin wheels with only four sides. So all together I created 3 candle mats, with the use of 6 HST's made from originally 6 inch by 6 inch square (I make them big and cut them down to ensure it looks like had good accuracy). The first square I did on it's own, but when I started the second I decided to do all the cuts for the third as well and produce them at the same time, turned out to be a great idea because I wasn't switching task all the time. 

I used pinwheel instructions from Quilts for Kids which is a non-profit organization that collects quilts for kids who have illnesses or hardships going on in their lives. (Seems like a good organization, and once I get to making quilts I would love to do something like this.) 

The three mats turned out really well I think, I loved how the backs turned out the most. 

The back almost looks like a snowflake pattern because I kept my bobbin thread white.

On the top I quilted each individual pinwheel, for white I used navy thread, for the snowman fabric I used white thread. And handy dandy,stitch 23. 

The interesting thing about stitching these versus my last projects is I was just using regular cotton thread so I was able to up the speed on my machine to full blast and it was fun! I zipped right through each pinwheel segment. I also kept my 1/4 foot quilting foot on the machine which I don't know should have been left on, but it allowed me to make sure I was leaving the right amount of space so all of the pinwheel segments were quilted in the same way. 

All Three Completed Candle Mats, one with a candle to show scale. 

This is a candle mat on top of our sub-woofer. I figured if it's going to be in the living room it might as well be festive. 

Just another picture but on our end table. 

I am certainly glad I made three, I might make a few more even. I am going to keep one for myself and I have two that will be gifts and I'm super excited to finally get to share my quilted pieces with other people. 

Now I just need to get some quilting tags so I can put created by on each one :)