The second placemat got virtually done yesterday afternoon, just needing its red border.  But I sure seemed to be spinning my wheels a lot.

Mishaps included cutting the strips wrong at first (though luckily 1/2" too wide, so at least it was an easy fix) to needing to frog-stitch a whole bunch of times.  

In the interest of “better safe than sorry” I decided to lay it aside and wait to trim (necessary before I add the red border), until today.

I got a 'reasonable' night's sleep (it's all relative!), 

and am ready to tackle the day!