Reversible Fall Placemat Tutorial - Part 3

We're going to finish this side in this tutorial. If you want to stop here and make one sided placemats of course you can. There are 2 ways of doing it - put the placemat and your backing fabric right sides together, place on top of a piece of batting, and sew around the edges, leaving about a 2 inch gap so that you can turn the placemat right side out. Then hand sew your gap, top stitch around the outer edges, and then quilt as you like. The other way is to make a quilt sandwich with fabric right sides out on the bottom and top, sew on your binding, and then quilt. There are several ways to make binding, and several ways to sew it on. I will explain in a later tutorial. Back to the final sewing for this side for now.

CAREFULLY take the top layers from each fabric bundle. I used caps because I wasn't careful enough and I ended up with a jumble. I suggest laying the pieces on a flat surface before you sew to be sure you have them in the correct order. Remember the column widths are 3 1/2, 2 1/2, 2 1/2, 3 1/2 and the bigger one. Your fabric colours should cascade vertically down like in the picture above. If you don't have the cascade with opposite end pieces looking exactly the same except at different widths, then look for the correct pieces in your bundles and audition the pieces until you get the correct layouts.

Once you are sure you have the proper pieces for the first placemat, take two pieces from one end and go to your ironing board. You will notice that when you place the two pieces together, the seams are both going in the same direction. You don't want to sew like that because it will be harder to get crisp joins. Take the second piece and iron the seams the other way.

Now you need to pin where your seams match. Some experienced quilters don't pin here, but I almost always do because otherwise I'm not happy and I rip and pin the second time! Don't worry about matching the ends of your strips. When I was learning I used to do that and wouldn't understand why my points and corners didn't match even though I had cut and sewn carefully. Now I don't even look at the ends. You have a quarter of an inch of leeway there when you sew again.

Place your seams together and use your fingers to feel when they are properly nested. If you have a gap, pull it closer together. Remember your seams should always be ironed to go in opposite directions. 

 Then pin. I pin on an angle getting the seam allowance front and back, and I have the bottom of my pin below the quarter inch seam line. That way I can sew right up to the seam line before I remove my pins. Don't sew over your pins! You might be lucky and get away unscathed. But if you don't you will be unhappy and your serviceman will be richer!

Sew your seam and iron it open. If you pinned well you will have perfect joins.

 If your fabric wasn't nested perfectly or if your fabric slipped after you removed the pin, you might have this. Then your choice is to rip and redo or stand back and look at how pretty the whole thing is and say, "Wow! I made this."  I kept going and unless someone really looks closely, they won't notice on the finished product. If you are making them to sell that is one thing. If you are making them for yourself, you do what makes you happy!

When you put the next fabric strip on you won't have to re-iron the seam. You will have to re-iron for strip 4. Use the same process of pin, sew, and iron your seam. Keep going until all four placemats are completed. Then step back, look at them and feel proud of yourself. If you choose not to make pumpkins for side 2, I hope you enjoyed the tutorial. If you are going to keep going, see you soon. My dog needs a walk but then I'll head to my sewing room to gather fabric! Cheers!