What Was I Thinking?

I had seven fat quarters of fall fabrics begging to be used, plus another piece from my stash calling out to join in the fun. I also had some osnaburg leftover from my basket project. So what did I decide to do? Make 16 placemats for Thanksgiving. Yes, 16. Why 16? I can't really recall what was rolling through my brain when I picked that lucky number. I'm certainly not planning on having 16 for dinner, although it is not outside the realm of possibility.

To be perfectly honest, I'm getting a little tired of placemats, and I'm not even close to being finished yet. In the back of my mind I keep telling myself that it is highly likely that someone is going to drip cranberry sauce or turkey gravy or my famous blueberry jello salad on their placemat and stain all my hard work. So I'm not really sure why I haven't shelved this whole project, except for the fact that I really really really love the colors and today I found the perfect backing fabric.
Do you know how many 2-inch squares you can get out of 1/4 yard of fabric? A freakin' lot, that's how many. After I made all the pieced strips for the placemats, I decided to stitch the rest of fabric into nine-patches. Then I pieced them all together. Surprisingly, the finished piece is about the size of a placemat, but hey, I already have 16 of those and, frankly, I don't want anymore. No, I have something special in mind for this little number. You'll just have to check in later to see what I'm thinkin' on this one.
And if that isn't enough...I took a few of the nine-patches, cut them apart, then restitched them together to make these cute little altered nine-patches, but I don't really know what to do with them. I don't need any pincushions or coasters, and I know they may look big on the screen, but they are only 4 inches across, so...I'm open to suggestions. (Please just ignore the fact that my corners don't meet; I was just playing around so, of course, I didn't pin, because I hate pinning. With all my heart. Hate. Pinning.)

This is my squished spider project. Ok, not really. Those are Missouri leaves peeking out from between the pages. I'm still coming up with a plan for those little beauties!

It's surprising how much you can get done when you give up housecleaning!