Got Scraps? Make Placemats!

What to do with all those scraps? I've got loads of fabric scraps and even more embroidered linens that I've collected. I will admit it's hard to cut into perfectly fine handwork, but much of it has been used and tattered over the years. I pulled out a few old dish towels that had seen better days, cut out the handwork, and went to town creating some new placemats. I used reproduction print scraps to give these an authentic era feel, but you can use anything you have laying around. They sew up fast and are super cute when finished.

Really, not much life left in the dish towel! I cut out the corner for a great save.

Another great piece of handwork. I did add a piece of fusible interfacing to the back of each towel for stability.

I had to have this one! An embroidered "K' on a printed dishtowel.

At this point, I dumped out my scraps and began to randomly stitch them together, creating strips that could easily be sewn to the embroidered pieces.

Once I had these pieced, I trimmed them to the same size, about 14" x 17".

I collect old tablecloths to use as backings on many of my quilts. I thought it might be appropriate to use this vintage tablecloth as the backing for the placemats, staying within the kitchen theme.I used a simple crosshatch design on each placemat and was able to place them side by side on my longarm machine.I cut them apart, sewed on the binding, and viola!!! A great way to re-purpose handwork. I used a double batting layer of Hobbs 80/20 and Glide 40 wt thread. I hope you'll give these a try, they are quick and fun! Happy New Year everyone!