Placemats | The 3R-S30W1

• Like I said earlier, I had to look up in my dad's bin and selected long fabrics that would fit my measurements. Fortunately for me, I saw a few long fabrics inside the trash bag. He then gave me some pieces from leftover materials. I was glad I had to do this, but another challenging situation was identifying my background colour and his to blend them well. I had to do sampling before cutting them. I placed each fabric on a background I choose and then checked if the colour combination would fit in perfectly to my placemat. I took pictures of and with the pieces.

	Removal
	Selection
	Confidence in reusing and recycling

• Using my tape, one of the pieces, ruler and chalk, I did a whole lot of design on the first fabric. My first fabric was dark green and I measured 7cm × 7cm in 7 places and selected 5 colours to do the job. I marked the points on each of them and then used a ruler to rule them together, connecting all the dots together. After doing this, I didn't clean the lines. I made sure the lines were still visible. Using this marked fabric, i was able to cut out the shape from 5 other colours. It gave me rectangles.

• I was able to produce 10 different rectangles for 2 placemats, but unfortunately, I couldn't do the second placemat because of inadequate machine. I was sharing one with my dad and it consumed my time.

	Using the green to measure others
	10 rectangles of different colours

• After doing this, I thought of weaving it, but didn't because it wasn't a requirement in this tutorial. I then joined them together to aligned and cut them into 7 different pieces in a group as shown in the picture. I used my marked sample to give me a perfect cut on this. I wouldn't have been so perfect without the marks. After cutting them in small sizes, I arranged them before doing colour blend with my mind's colour theory. I started balancing colours to see which one would fit in more perfectly. From the tutorial, I was expected to give a lengthy of 5 pieces with 5 different colours and 7 pieces from these 5 colours in a pattern.

	Cutting them using the marked fabric
	Arranging the pieces in. Pattern shape so I'll capture it and use it as a guide when sewing
	Test and balance

• If you're not careful with the sewing, you'll definitely make a lot of mistakes to be honest with you . I used the picture I captured to guide me and the first thing I did was to join these pieces horizontally, singly before thinking of joining them together. Take one piece and joining it with the next piece, have a strong connection. I had to ensure the patterns were still intact and I didn't use more than 1/2 inch when joining to avoid eating up spaces. After this, I arranged them singly and captured it with my phone as shown below.

	My placemat on a background

This was my own pattern.

• After Sewing them horizontally, I joined all of them horizontally by sewing it straight to give a perfect look and remember, to make this kind of sewing, you must use the back piece, so you can turn it to the front piece after sewing. I then got a placemat, but my background was missing. I had to add a background. I didn't want to sew my placemat to straighten the edges that's why I thought of ironing it instead of sewing and my ironing was rather perfect.

	My placemat on a background

• I then placed it on my background and added a bias seam to make out the edges perfectly. I wasn't that difficult and I was happy with myself after the whole process. This is the final result.

	Final Product

That satisfied feeling of doing something perfectly got into me and I was like, this is damn serious. So I could deliver something of this nature. I was proud of myself even though I couldn't complete the placemat by making it two.

.	Me and my Placemat

I didn't just recycle this pieces to throw them away after doing the tutorial. I used it for my dinning table to place my meals. I had a dinner of soaked Garri with chocolate and groundnut at night. I had to place it there so that the drops of Garri will fall on the placemats if possible and it won't stain the main table. It also act as a tray to me. So I used it to place my dinner as you can see in the picture.

	Using my Placemat
	Placing Garri plate on it.

I think if I start producing it for commercial purposes, it would make a lot of sense. I'll try producing more and selling it for people to buy.

I Invite the following to the recycling challenge ♻️: I invite @dove11 , @blessedlife and @kouba01 .