Hi friends, Today I'm happy to share a tutorial for a mini quilted place mat – an easy project that goes together in a couple hours and is perfect if you're looking for a fun, self-indulgent afternoon of sewing, a stash-busting project, or even a last-minute Easter dinner hostess gift. It's also an easy project to up- or downsize (think table runner or coasters). Even better: it brings a bit of longed-for spring colour to your table. Click through for photos and instructions! So, what got me thinking about mini place mats? Truth be told this weekend project is brought to you by Wednesday's lunch. Rather, by Wednesday's lunchtime "place mat." Every Wednesday, I work from home – and working from home means eating a plate of oven-warmed leftovers for lunch. (Yum!) I usually pull that gratin dish out of the oven and take it right to the table. The only problem? The dish is hot, and the table's not heatproof. Enter that nasty looking oven mitt. Not exactly appetizing! This week, I'd had enough of that mitt – so I headed to my fabric stash. I found four pretty fat quarters, some plain cotton, and a bunch of " insul-bright" style insulated batting. If you're not worried about hot casserole dishes, regular quilt batting would be just fine. Chop, chop! I used my rotary cutter to slice a handful of 2.5" squares. Then I fired up the sewing machine. Chain piecing means that things go together really quickly. I just threw things together willy-nilly – no real concern about mixing things up in a pattern. It wasn't long before I had a quilt sandwich. I used two layers of insulated batting (better safe than sorry!) and pinned with straight pins. (Safety pins drive me nuts, and for a tiny quilt like this, I don't really think it matters.) Make sure that your batting and backing layers are larger than your quilt top. Using a walking foot makes machine quilting a piece of cake. I stitched-in-the-ditch in both directions... ...then I used masking tape to mark diagonal stitching lines. Love the way that blue plays against the pinks! When I was finished with the final lines of quilting, I sorted through my trim stash and found this pink double-fold bias tape. Hello, binding! Then it was time to trim and square my quilt, preparing it for the binding. Using pre-made bias tape is a quick and easy way to bind a quilt. I opened the binding tape up and pinned the unfolded edge against the trimmed edge of the quilt. Then I machine-stitched it on, just outside the fold line, all the way around. I flipped the binding over the edge, arranging the corner mitres and clipping as I worked. Binder clips are a genius way of holding the folded binding over the edge of the quilt. No more pins to poke my tender fingers! It didn't take long to attach the binding to the wrong side. I love this part, don't you? Ta da! Done and done. Time for a snack after all that hard work. Mm, jam cake! Have a fabulous Easter weekend. See you back here on Monday!