Simple Placemat Tutorial

My kitchen needed some spring updates. And since I live in a home where spring means it is {finally} time to get out our road bikes, I figured I’d give it a little bike theme. Similar to the bike kitchen towels I made a few weeks ago. 

Here is how I made four of these cute placemats.

I cut 8 pieces of fabric 12” x 18”. (I used this size because that’s the size of my cutting mat. In hindsight, I should have made them bigger. Oh well. They’ll work.)

Then I used the freezer paper stenciling technique to paint bikes on four of them.

   

Each placemat will be made of two of the 12” x 18” pieces you cut. After the paint dries completely, pin each placemat together with right sides together.

Stitch around the perimeter with a 1/4” seam allowance. Leave a 3” opening to turn the placemat to right sides out. Clip the corners.

 

Use the opening to turn the placemat right sides out.

Use a pointed object to push out each corner.

 

After you have the placemat turned right sides out, it’ll be a little puffy. You’ll need to press it carefully. 

Before you press, you’ll want to make sure each seam is crisp. Otherwise the seams could be uneven.

After pressing the whole placemat and making sure the raw edges are turned under uniformly with the rest of the seam, top stitch around the whole perimeter. Pivot at each corner to make them crisp. (Below is an especially nice corner.)

 

Here’s a peek at the wrong side of my placemats. I matched up the stripes when cutting to make sure the front and backs matched at the edges.

 

Repeat three more times for the remaining placemats!

P.S. If you've been following my blog for awhile, you might recognize this fabric. I bought it on ebay forever ago. I think this is the last of it. I've used it to recover a high chair, this tote bag, recover my ironing board, and make a sewing machine cover. Whew! I like it, but I'm a little tired of it at this point! It was a great purchase, though.