Placemats
Something Quirky
Placemats
In 2020, I had an idea to design placemats with food imagery as a different (and humorous) take on this prosaic household item. My desire was to create a product for my customers that they would see and use every day, perhaps eliciting a chuckle or evoking a memory of a favorite meal. Gathering with family and friends at the table remains an essential part of daily life worldwide. So why not add to the conversation with interesting placemats?
To start, I created a few “meals” to test at craft fairs. The audience reaction was very positive. Buyers would often suggest their favorite meals, which sometimes were added to the collection. At this point, I have designed well over seventy “meals”.
The process of making a placemat begins by drawing the elements that will make up the final image (eggs, bacon, toast), then cutting the pieces in wool felt and sewing them onto a background. The felt material creates an aesthetically pleasing, graphic image that is also easy to cut into tiny pieces that make up the design. As the process has evolved, the felt backgrounds have been replaced by ones I generate in Adobe Photoshop. This allows me to keep the original meals while seasonally updating the placemats background color and pattern.
Once I am satisfied with the result in its entirety, the felt version of the placemat is photographed. I then size it and have it printed by a small textile printer. Printing the original design allows me to reproduce a washable final product that can be repeated for as long as the design is in production. Once the placemats are printed, I quilt them onto a cotton canvas background, finishing the edge with a bias, canvas binding. The final product is a highly crafted, richly textured, structured placemat that endures everyday use. For a few seasons the placemats were printed on cotton canvas. They are now printed on Ecotex poly canvas for color durability as well as to eliminate the need to iron the product after washing. The poly canvas has a beautiful hand and basketweave texture that adds to the overall look and feel of the placemat.
I title each placemat design often referencing a cultural trope. In part, this is to reveal my inspiration for a given design but is also a remnant of my art exhibition career, where titles play an important role in the creation of an art work. The first placemat I created in 2020, “Range”, is in reference to the song, Home, Home on the Range written by Brewster M. Higley in 1870 and later popularized by singer, Gene Autry. The “Range” placemat loosely references my childhood, camping with my cowboy father as he cooked our family breakfast on an open fire. We also LOVED the song as kids. Other title examples include “Big Mic” (hamburger and fries) that pays homage to an iconic American fast-food restaurant and “Dim Sum Sunday”, a reference to a New York City tradition wherein we would trek down to Chinatown on Sundays for Dim Sum.
Placemat Collection Description: What’s for Breakfast?”
Our chipper, cheery placemats will make sure that you start the day off on the right foot (even if you’re just having a bowl of Cheerios).
Quilted placemats on a cotton canvas background with finished edge in bias, canvas binding. The final product is a highly crafted, richly textured, structured placemat that endures everyday use. Printed on Ecotex poly canvas for color durability as well as to eliminate the need to iron the product after washing. The poly canvas has a beautiful hand and basketweave texture that adds to the overall look and feel of the placemat.
“Range”
Breakfast fit for a cowboy.
