kitchen mats

I have this lurking feeling that I've already written about this before.  I finished this mat literally days before the babies were born (when I was young and carefree) and it's been a bit of a blur since then so bear with me.

This is basically a bath mat, but it lives on the kitchen counter next to the sink for draining dishes.  We have a dish washer but the pots, pans, mixing bowls, and a few other things still have to be hand washed.  I'd much rather just let them air dry than go to the effort of wiping them, but dish racks are pretty useless where pots and pans are concerned.  So we had been letting everything drain onto a depressing soggy dish towel.   This mat replaces the towel and is better looking and more absorbent.  And when it's not in use it still covers up part of my hideous counters.  You should probably go make one right now.

I also made one for the floor in front of the sink but that's not nearly as important.

I'm very pleased with the method I used to make these.  I pieced together the top, then sewed it directly to a piece of old towel, right side up, quilting it as if the towel were the quilt back.  Then I bound it like a quilt.  The very dense horizontal quilting lines (about half an inch apart) and the thick linen binding make it much sturdier and more substantial than this mat.  This is definitely my new preferred method for making bath mats, because you know we should all take a stand on that issue.