Finished: NY Beauty Round Placemats in Ruby Star

My sister recently moved to New York from Arizona, and I wanted to do something special for her to welcome her to her new home. When she requested a set of round placemats for her tulip table, I thought it was the perfect idea! I was excited to come up with a design that would complement her eclectic and stylish home. Years ago, I made her a set of clamshell placemats during a curved sewing class with Rachel from Stitched in Color. The original project was meant to be a pillow, but I chose to make placemats instead.

Since then, my curves skills have gotten a little better (I credit the 196 circles in the In Our Own Words Quilt for that!). I’m a lot more confident in using color and mixing patterns, too. So I was excited to tackle this project and make it a more sophisticated placemat than the old ones (which she still uses!).

I decided to use NY Beauty blocks (I mean, she did move to NY after all!) as the basis of the design and made it pop with fabric from Ruby Star Society’s Bird Is the Word collection mixed with coordinating solids from my stash. I was going for an Anthropolgie-ish vibe and I feel like it works!

The placemats finish at 15″ diameter, and I bound them using continuous bias binding that I made with the help of this tutorial.

Each one is slightly different, but they all pull from the same fabrics and color story:

I can’t pick a favorite because I love each one, and I especially love them all together!

I hope that she has them for years to come, and thinks about how much I love her each time she sees them!

For more on how I pieced these NY Beauty blocks you can watch this quick tutorial. Once you get the hang of it, you won’t want to stop!

This might be one of my favorite gifts that I’ve ever made. What’s the favorite handmade gift that you’ve ever given? I’d love to hear in the comments below!