I was contacted on Friday with a request to make a custom set of 6 placemats as a wedding gift. As is typical, the couple had registered for some dishware, and I was able to use the colors of the dishes as a jumping off point for fabric selection. The dishware are orange and jade, with rich cocoa and light cream accents:
I am really making a lot of placemats these days, huh? Well, I have learned a few things as I have made quite a few recently. One is that charging for the raw materials and labor like I do for baby and custom requested quilts makes the pricing of placemats unreasonably high. So I try to use up as much fabric out of my stash as possible when making placemats. I also charge a very low hourly rate ($5/hr) and a minimal fabric restocking fee ($10-$15) if I can use fabric entirely from my stash. Is this the best thing to do? I don’t know, but charging upwards of $200 for a set of 6 placemats also seems unruly.
Well, I sat down in front of my computer screen with my Kona color card and matched to the colors of the dishware as best I could. I thought that any orange fabrics needed be in the Carrot or Tangerine colors, the brown as Mohogany or similar, and the Jade green as Jade or Candy Green. I went to my stash and low and behold I had plenty of fabrics that worked!
Side note: photographing orange is hard.
I ended up down-selecting to only 3 of the greens, as that worked best for the pattern I selected for the placemat top.
The fabric I used for the lattice and binding of the placemats is a fabric I had purchased back in 2010 to use as the backing for a friend’s baby quilt. However, when I got the fabric home I realized that all the fancy “swirls” really spelled out Coffee. I did not think that was very appropriate for a baby quilt, so I purchased something else to use for the backing and this Coffee print has been sitting languishing in my stash. I fussy cut the heck out of it, and I don’t think the word Coffee is visible in the placemats. I am so proud to have successfully used that fabric and removed it from my stash – it is all gone! Yeah! Have you ever had a fabric mistake like that?
I quilted an all over meandering loop pattern for the placemats. I used a variegated orange thread in the bobbin and a teal thread for the top.
I did so much fussy cutting of the binding fabric that I ended up a bit short, so you might notice that 3 of the set have an additional orange accent as part of the binding.
Each placemat finished out at 13″ tall by 19″ wide (prewash).
The backing for each placemat is a solid orange batik that is also used in the piecing for the top of the placemats.
Overall, I really love how these turned out. I think they are a rather stunning color combination that I would have never really put together on my own without the dishware inspiration. I like it so much I keep thinking about the remaining fabric and wondering if there is enough for a set of 2 placemats for my husband and I.
They are beautiful. Were you able to work out a reasonable price??
Great thinking using the wedding registry for colors, they are beautiful. I only make place mats for family -they buy the fabric and then buy me lunch.
Those came out really nice! I wish I had known you had coffee fabric, I would have taken it off your hands!!
These turned out great. I think you still need to make it worth you while and should charge at least minimum wage. 🙂 You have made so many placemats. Are you getting faster?
I love your color choices! Those look really nice.
I love these. The color combination is unexpected and works so well together. You are my inspiration Yvonne……my 5 placemats are still waiting for me to quilt them! 🙂
It was a stroke of brilliance to use their dishware choices to guide your colour selection.
It’s so hard to price one’s own work. I have ended up pricing things based on covering the cost of materials plus whatever my gut tells me is fair to both of us. If I look at something from a consumer’s viewpoint and think I wouldn’t pay that, I know it’s priced too high. If I look at it and feel dissatisfied/resentful, I know I’m not charging enough. It’s a fine balance, and isn’t based on attaching a fee to my time. (If I did that, everything would cost at least a thousand dollars!!! lol) I have also recorded sizes and prices of things I’ve sold so I can be somewhat consistent.
If you are happy with your pricing, and it sounds like you are, then go with it. 🙂
Very nice! I love it when I fabric that that was discarded from one project works perfectly in another 🙂
You are inspiring me to do some much needed placemats for us. What a fun way to try out new patterns!
Looking good! You can open up a placemat business soon 🙂 I’m facinated by your large empty and clean table! Ours seems so full all the time 🙂
That orange is so striking! Beautiful work.
These turned out so well!! Matching to the dishware truly was brilliant. I will keep it in mind for future wedding gifts! I’d also love to know what pricing you decided on, if you don’t mind sharing.
I realllllly need to make some placemats. They have been on my “to-do soon” list for months. Maybe if I keep seeing yours, I’ll finally make them!! Thank you for the inspiration.
You’ve given me a lot of placemat inspiration over the last couple of weeks. I may even think about using some of my scraps and making some. These are lovely, and I like the pattern you used.
The placemats are beautiful! I have a hard time figuring out what I would charge if I were selling things I made. I’d love to give it a try, but I wonder if anyone would actually pay what I’d consider reasonable for my time. I think it’s a personal choice, and you have to be happy with your decision. That being said, I also think we as makers tend to undervalue our time and charge too little for the art we are making.
These are absolutely lovely! And I never would have guessed about that coffee fabric. Yay for finishing it off! Wow. That’s a really stunning color combination. Now I want new fancy placemats for my table! 🙂