Recycling vintage embroideries

My eagle-eyed colleague Sarah came back from a trip to the Paris flea markets last week with another bundle of beautiful vintage embroideries - this time some pretty cotton table mats which are partly finished, leaving the faint outline of flowers still to embroider.

So the question is, what to do with them? I could try and finish them, but time is ticking and I quite like them as they are! I could make them into cushion covers for the chairs (see pics below), as my mum and I have started doing with Sarah’s last Parisian haul of embroideries (and the other lacey bits we have collected). Or we could use them as place mats for the top table? Or how about Sarah’s idea to ask for guests’ input in the creative process?

Here are some of the (69p Ikea) cushions that we have started re-covering: