Place Mats

I love handmade place mats. To me they signify that you enjoy cooking, doesn’t have to be fancy cooking either, just healthy meals. It also, means that you have your meals together and talk about your days activities. A table does not have to be set with fine china and crystal either, it just has to feel welcoming.

With company coming, I just had to make place mats. I had a tablecloth I bought a while ago and while I love the colour, I didn’t have the right place mats to use. I did buy some of those skinny bamboo type, but when you rest your arms on them, not so comfy. Those I bought in a pinch, hence the need to go back to homemade.

When I was at one of our local fabric shops the other day, they had a display of the bolts of fabric and these kits made up for place mats and a table runner, didn’t buy the table runner, but for sure the mats. I didn’t have the tablecloth with me, but as luck would have it, the mats turned out to be just right…

What was a great discovery, something I had forgotten until I got the mats finished, was that the table cloth has lines of what look like hand stitching throughout. Of course it’s not hand stitched, but my sewing machine does the same kind of stitch.

I don’t use a lot of the stitches my machine has, but this one I do. It’s called a “sculpting stitch”. You use regular thread in the bobbin and invisible thread on top, adjust the tension and set the stitch on the machine. What you get is this.  My machine is a Janome Decor DC 3050 if you have a place nearby to go and see the stitch in real life.

And here are the finished mats. The last picture shows you the backing and how the stitching shows up on the bottom. Now off to conquer something else…Have a great weekend everyone.