Shabby Chic place mat

In the latest Down To Earth forum handmade swap, my partner is a lady in the USA who like me, didn't want any more dishcloths, teatowels or notebooks!   But she told me she loves anything in pastel colours, and in the shabby chic style.  I knew I had the right fabrics in my stash, so I searched through my magazines and files until I found something that I thought could work for her.  It is basically just a decorative mat that could be placed on a coffee table, or side table, anywhere really.  The front has strips of lace embellishing the squares.

  The back is plain, using a dainty strawberry patterned fabric.

Mushroom cushion finished.

This cushion is not something I would have chosen to put anywhere around our house, and if it wasn't for a surprise email I received last week, I probably would have just finished doing the needleturn applique for the experience, then put it in my basket of UFOs to languish until someone took a liking to it!
The email was from Homespun Magazine.  They had seen my first photo of this project on my blog and asked if I would send them a photo when it was finished, so they can print it in the magazine!  You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather : - o 
So I finished it today and will email this pic to the lady from Homespun who requested it.  Out of all the projects I have done over the years from Homespun mag, this one has to be my least favourite!  I suppose it is a bit different and not many of their readers made it? 

One finished, one in progress.

Below is the mini quilt I have made for a friend of Ken's.  They are both members of the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club, and J has been very kind to Ken at times when he has been unwell at a bike meet, looking after him and taking charge of his bike when it broke down once.  Ken asked me if I would do something for J, so I scanned some vintage bikes from a calendar, printed them on to inkjet fabric, and made them up into this:
Front:

Back (used a panel of vintage poster prints):

Some of my regular blog readers might remember when I bought a panel of Japanese fabric with cranes flying across a landscape - a few years ago at a patchwork show.  I have been trying to decide what to do with it ever since, and had made up my mind to make it into an Attic Windows style wall hanging or quilt.  But I wasn't game to cut my fabric up until I had expert advice on how to go about it.  The expert advice came to me via Leanne at the Eltham Quilt Shop, who has guided me through several quilting projects now - she is my Quilting Goddess!  Last week she showed me how to cut the fabric, as well as the lengths for the window frames, and the border.   Then she showed me how to piece it together using a mitre technique for the corners, instead of a half square triangle corner.
The next day at home, I made up a sample block using scraps of fabric from my stash, and once I was confident, set about making up the cranes window.  Here it is:

I am wondering if I should have made the window frames wider, but we did discuss it last week, and thought if they were too wide, they would overpower the cranes fabric.  I'm certainly not going to pull it apart now in any case!  Just waiting until next month when I can show Leanne and see what she thinks.  I am in two minds about putting another border around it, but she advised to leave it with the black border, as any extra could detract attention from the picture.
At this stage I am thinking of handquilting this one, using gold thread to stitch around the cranes and the red and gold swirly bits.