Placemats tutorial

Here's part two of using up my old silver car windscreen shades! Yesterday I showed you the Space JeM and the coasters I made, today I'll show you the matching placemats!


So first of all the materials. I folded the last part of the sunshade to make 2 good sized rectangles for the placemats. (No measuring here, just used what was left which was approx 35cm x 24cm).
I also cut 3 sets of coaster ( my pattern was to draw around a drinks coaster!) sized squares of fabric in different matching fabrics. I wanted to use my "Barrier Reef" scraps again, and found coloured scraps with similar tones. I cut 7 squares of each colour, per placemat.


Next step was to join 2 pieces of different fabric together. I used a 3/8" seam for each one.

Try to join the fabric squares together in the three different combinations:

Until you have 3 different piles of two squares joined together. (Note the deliberate mistake of the last orange and blue pair placed on the wrong pile on the right!! oops!)

Now lay these pairs of squares out next to each other to make a set of 10 squares, making sure that you never have the same fabric next to each other!

Then join these pieces together......



Making sure to keep the seams facing opposite ways so the fabric isn't too bulky.

Then join together two of your panels of 1o squares to make your larger placemat-sized rectangle.

Then all you have to do, is join the fabric to the silver mat, in exactly the same way that we did the coasters yesterday.

Place the patchwork rectangle you just made face down, and lay the silver mat, silver-side up on top as centrally as you can.

(I should probably mention here that you should press the seams on the back of the patchwork piece flat to make it easier to work with. I forgot to add that photo!)

Double fold the edges to hide the raw edge and pin to the silver mat, like this:

Pin all four sides like this:

Next step is to neaten the corners, by folding the fabric corner under the silver mat like this:


Then folding the sides in, which will hopefully then meet up a little more accurately than mine did here!

Then after pinning the corners, all you have left to do is stitch around the edges to secure.




And hey presto, you have a patchwork placemat!

Here's the fabric side:

And here's the silver side:

Together with the coasters, they make quite a neat matching set!

My daughters certainly loved them, and had to use them immediately!

I'm thinking they may be a good set for them to have for their 'secret garden' - which is at the bottom of our garden, well screened by trees and bushes. Although I'm not sure they really match the wobbly (or maybe I should say 'rustic' ) pink table and benches I made them from some old fence posts! - woodwork isn't my strong point, but at least they do the job!

So far I've only used one torn up silver car shade. I've still got two more and a few scraps! And I've a couple more ideas..........

Jill