Neighborhood table

 Hi everyone! How was your week? Mine was a doozy, and I will tell you all about it at the end of this post. We have to get to the quilty stuff first, right? Today I'm showing the rest of the placemats I made for the Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt along at mmmquilts. Most people made an actual quilt, but these houses just screamed 'fun placemats!' to me, so that's what I made. Here is the whole set of six:

 

It has been raining for the past couple of days (hurray!), so the pictures are a little washed out, but aren't those great placemats? They each finish at about 16 by 20, a very nice generous size for outdoor eating in the summer.

How about some closer pictures? Here are the two that I had finished earlier and already posted about:

Obviously those were photographed on a much brighter day! 

I call this one the party house, and it's my granddaughter's favorite because it's mostly purple:

Doesn't that look like a house that has a lot of fun summer parties? Or maybe it looks like a house of some people you knew in college. You know the ones I mean. . . I love the pink roof and the wild colors of this house.

This is the hippie house, the home of some very laid back people:

If I had had some fabric with a peace sign, I would have found a way to incorporate it, but nothing like that in all the fabric I own. I'm sure the people in this house have no trouble with their very unusual turquoise roof. 

Next up is the birdhouse, which was very, very hard to photograph, for unknown reasons:

As you can see, the birds have a design feature on the front of their home. I added the extra green strip because there was no way for me to match up all the birds, and it just looked too weird when I joined the front pieces together. I love the star on the side of this house, too. 

Finally, there is the garden house, which might be my favorite:

This is probably the house I would choose to live in, if such a thing were possible. It looks so peaceful. And it was a great use of a gray and coral fat quarter, which I got in a kit that I bought a while ago just for the fabric in it.

All in all, a fun project for a fun summer table! The pattern is great and chock-ful of all kinds of things I didn't include, including different kinds of house features, all the different blocks for the sides of the houses, and some trees and flowers, plus two different layouts and instructions for a pillow. You could end up with some fun placemats, too!

So, here's why I had a heck of a week--

Short version: I have a pulmonary embolism. You can read more about what that is HERE. Pay attention to the 'lfe-threatening' part.

Longer version: Last Wednesday, as I was finishing stitching on the binding on one of these placemats, I started having trouble breathing and was sweating and shaking, so I thought I was having a heart attack. That's your first thought, right? Of course we went right to the emergency room, and if you ever want fast service, walk in and tell them you think you're having a heart attack. You'll get four nurses and a doctor to help you right away. It wasn't a heart attack, but hours and many tests later, they discovered a pulmonary embolism. I'm happy to know what happened, and glad that the hospital took such good care of me. I'm taking more (very expensive) medication than I ever thought possible, and I get to have even more tests! Won't that be fun?

So, there's what happened! It was exciting and terrifying, and continues to be so. All of my summer plans are up in the air, so we'll have to rearrange. I gues that means more time for stitching, right? It's a non-stressful activity, isn't it? 

Take care of yourselves, friends, and have a great weekend! If you have trouble breathing or your chest hurts, get help right away. Take it from me!

Sharing at Sandra's quiltalong linkup, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished or not Friday, and the Quilting, Patchwork, Applique linkup.