Things have been quiet around here, but that is because I have been busy making gifts! (And cleaning like crazy. Our renters moved out and it took two and half weeks to bring the apartment back up to snuff. :( Then we bought a house and now I've got to clean OUR apartment - but we bought a house, YAY!!)
Anyway, now that these gifts have been gifted, I can blog about them...
I made both of my dads a Rummy Royal mat, like the
one I made for myself. The Rummy mat has been a huge success and now I won't have to remember to pack mine up every time we visit the family!
My
original Rummy mat was made octagonal, which created a problem for anyone who wants to add the "Aces" element to the game. (If you want to know more about how to play Rummy Royal - check this out:
Rummy.com. It's a super fun game.). On the original, I didn't haven anywhere to put the Ace corners, so I just split the Kitty section in half and put them there. It was a little confusing (just trust me on that one if you've never played before), but I still liked the octagon shape.
After some thought, I decided to make one square mat and one octagonal mat to see which one I liked best. The square one is for the Dad who introduced me to the game, the octagonal one is for my own Dad.
Here is the square one:
The suits in the corner are for those who like to bet on the aces.
This one uses Timeless Treasure Sketch fabrics, just like the original.
My applique skills have improved SIGNIFICANTLY since my last Rummy mat. These look TONS better. I really like the appliqued Kitty over the FMQ Kitty I attempted on the
original.
The Hubby chose the backs for me - isn't he nice? I brought out about a dozen prints from my "yard or more" stash and he picked two. I think this one worked out great.
For binding, I used the same sketch fabrics as the center and attempted to make the center colors match up with the binding colors. I ended up with
slightly more than I needed in yellow and orange, so some of the corners ended up a little wonky with the extra fabric. Oh well. :)
Here is the octagonal one:
I went back and forth on how to quilt these. I wanted to try something different on one of them - maybe something with intersecting lines or something. In the end, I quilted both mats with this spiral octagon. I felt that having something that laid flat and was evenly and densely quilted was most important. Thanks again, Mom, for the walking foot!
I wanted to try a scrappy center for this one, so I pulled some green, orange, and blue. I've got a little bit of Kona, Lizzy House, Tula Pink, and Amy Butler in there.
I combined the aces suits with the kitty section, but added the extra strip of fabric to help divide them and hopefully minimize confusion while playing the game. I think it looks way better than the
original.
I really struggled coming up with a good binding for this one. Since the center was scrappy, I didn't have enough scraps to match it, so I wanted a one-fabric binding. At first I picked out that orange/green/brown stripe. I thought it looked pretty good with the front and even went so far as to make the binding.
Then I realized that it looked HORRIBLE with the blue backing, so I dug through my stash and came up with this green batik that I've always had a hard time finding a place for. I think it looks MUCH better!
I did all the binding by machine this time - I wanted it to be extra durable.
And here's a peek at the original Rummy Royal mat! Does anyone else want one now?
ETA: I've created a listing for Rummy Royal mats on Etsy! You can get your own mat HERE.
