On Monday this week, I spoke of the 2 Sew Easy rulers you should consider adding to your quilting toolbox to get started. Those 2 rulers were:

• Sew Easy Quilting Ruler – 24″ x 6½”; and
• Sew Easy Square Ruler – 12½” x 12½”.

Those 2 rulers are versatile enough to meet 98% of your quilting needs.

As you gather experience and become more immersed in quilting you’ll probably want to add more rulers to your toolbox. My recommendations for your next 2 rulers are:

• Sew Easy Square Ruler – 6 ½” x 6½”; and
• Sew Easy Quilting Ruler – 12″ x 6½″

So, without further ado, below is the fabric placement diagram for today’s placemat design.

I’ll be using novelty fabrics for the door, windows and garage pieces.

Note: I’d originally planned for this placemat house design to be a 2-story home, but after selecting the novelty fabric, which features ladies quilting, I decided this placemat would be more of a quilting retreat center with a parking garage for several cars.

Today’s method for making half-square triangles (HSTs) is the easiest and quickest method this week!

Begin by taking the C and D fabrics and drawing a diagonal line with a pencil or chalk on the wrong side of the C piece. Place both fabrics wrong sides together. Then, sew ¼” away from the diagonal line on each side of the line.

When both seams are sewn to either side of the diagonal line, cut along the marked line.

Lay every piece for the placemat out on your work surface in their correct spots according to the diagram.

Compared to the 3 other placemats I’ve constructed this week, I’ll sew today’s building together in two sections: the upper and lower floors.

TIP Use the second photo of this post as a guide for piece placement.

Sew the pieces that make up the retreat house right sides together with a ¼” seam using the following groupings and order (going to be like algebra):

1. E onto the top and the bottom of L
2. CD onto each side of ELE
3. G onto the top of K
4. F onto the left side of GK
5. H onto the top and the bottom of M
6. F onto the left side of HMH
7. J onto the top of N
8. I onto the left side of JN
9. F onto the right side of JN
10. FGK onto the left side of FHMH
11. JNF onto the right side of FHMH

I hope the assembly didn’t cause too much confusion.

Guess what! Almost finished the fourth and last placemat.

Now to finish off by sewing:

• the two B pieces onto either side of the building
• the top sky A strip
• the grass B strip along the lower edge

I hope you like the last of the 4 placemats.

At the beginning of today’s post I suggested you consider adding the Sew Easy Square Ruler – 6½” x 6½” and the Sew Easy Quilting Ruler – 12” x 6½” to your quilting toolbox.

Ask any quilter and they’ll tell you the same thing: that you can never have too many rulers.

Normally, at this point in the week I’d be finished, but, I’ve decided to add the sixth post. We still need to finish off the placemats.

Come on back and I’ll show you how to both quilt and add a binding to the placemats. This is something new quilters need to learn and it’s possible that even some seasoned quilters need a refresher.