Today’s sew along features one of our free patterns. It’s our picnic pockets placemats pattern #592. These placemats have cute side pockets for napkins, cutlery, even toys! Get the pattern and make a set with Paulette.
Video transcript:
Hi everyone I’m Paulette Morrissey from Tulip Square, and this week I’m going to show you how to make this cute little placemat we call this the Picnic Pocket placemat, because it’s got a couple little cute pockets here for your silverware, or your napkins, or whatever else you want to put in there, little kids like to drive their little Hot Wheels cars in there, but be that as it may it’s a quick pattern to make. So we’re going to head over to the sewing machine and we’re going to get started on it. Now this pattern if you want to follow along, or you want to give it a try, it’s a free pattern it’s free with the link below in the description, and it’s also free on our website at tulipsquare.com. So let’s head over to the sewing machine and get started.
This time I’m going to use this brown print, this blue polka dot, and a sort of a brown solid. So I’m going to call this one my print as in the pattern, and this is going to be my solid. So to start with, and I’m only making one one placemat, the pattern calls for the requirements and everything for four placemats. So you’re going to start with your larger little squares and you’re going to draw a diagonal line on each one just like this. Just do a line down there and then you’re going to pair these up with the solid color squares of the same size. Make sure these are nice and lined up, and I’ve only got two of them because this is just one placemat. There would be eight of them if you’re making a set so keep that in mind as I as I work here. Now I’m going to put a quarter of an inch seam down each side of that line so I will show you how that looks.
Now once you’ve sewn both seams you just cut down the center on that line you drew.
That gives you a quarter inch seam allowance on each piece, and then when you open these up you’ve got a square. So I’m going to cut these and open them and press them open. Now I’m going to take some flowered squares that are the same size as these after they’ve been sewn, and I’m going to put one like so, oops like so, on each side so I’m going to do that twice because I’ve got four of these little half pieces now, so I’m going to do this twice. Just sew this here and on the other side, and make a little strip of these three pieces.
And then with the last two of your flowered pieces of that same size, you’re going to sew that with one of the solid pieces in between, so these, this gets sewn as a little strip like this.
So now I’ve got two pieces like this, and one piece like this, and this gets just turned around and put here, like so, and you’ll notice when I press them, I press these two seams towards the center, and I press these two seams away from the center, so that when I sew them together they will all nestle beautifully and you have no extra bulk and they’ll lock right into their each other’s seams so you have the nice nesting on each of those. So I’m just going to sew these together so we have a little nine square block.
Now you have this cute little block done. So next what you’re going to do is take the two pieces that are your pocket pieces, which are these two rectangles, and we’re just going to fold each one of them in half right side out and give them a good press. Make sure they’re nice and even and those get placed one right here, and one right here, even with the side edge and the bottom edge of the placemat, and I’m just going to grab a couple pins and pin them in place.
Now I’m going to take the two border strips, and one is going to go right here, right over that pocket piece. So the pocket piece is right under here, I’m going to lay this down and I’m going to sew this quarter inch seam, and then I’m going to put this one over here and sew this quarter inch seam, and then you press the border strip to the outside and you press the pockets to the outside so that these edges of the pockets will get caught in your binding and this edge is free to be a pocket, where you can put your silverware or folded up napkin or whatever you like. Now normally I would say okay this is all there is to it and go have some fun and quilt and bind it, but I want to go ahead and show you a little bit. We’re going to do this a little bit different because of the pockets so we want the pockets free when you’re doing your quilting because you don’t want to quilt across the pocket or obviously it’s not going to be a pocket anymore, so I’m going to do a real quick simple quilting on this and then you’ll be good to go. So I’ll be, I’m going to go get some backing and some batting and I’ll be right back.
Ok so I’m just doing some real simple quilting on here, just doing about a quarter of an inch away from all of the seam lines. So when I get to the pocket I’ve got the pocket pushed way over to this side to the border and I’m going to continue quilting down here.
When I get to the spot where all of the center part is quilted, I’m going to come down, and I’m going to cut my thread, and then I’m going to fold both pockets to the inside and I’m going to pin them just so they don’t accidentally get in my way. I’m just going to stick a pin in here so they stay out of my way and a pin in here.
And now I’m just going to quilt this little back rectangle.
For the fun of it I’m going to put just a little stripes up here. I’m just going to follow along the width of my, the edge of my walking foot.
At the end of these rows I’m going past, like close to the edge because that’s going to be covered with binding so that stitching doesn’t matter.
Like so, and then this can be unpinned and put back down here, and then when I sew my binding on I make sure this is pinned in the open position where it belongs, right here, and then I will trim the whole thing and sew the binding on and it’s done.
I’m just going to do the binding real quick and if you want to watch along go ahead, if you don’t, skip to the end and you’ll see the finished project.
How I like to do this is start pretty close to the bottom edge of what I’m working on and leave a big long tail.
I stopped about a quarter of an inch from the edge here, cut the thread, and then what I like to do to make a nice square corner, I like to fold this up so what you need to do is have this line and this line be a parallel line. They need to be a straight line, so I make sure they’re nice and straight and then I take a short ruler and I just lay it along the top edge up here so it’s even up here and then I fold this down so it’s also lined up perfectly here, and then when I pull this out and I sew, I’ve got a perfect corner fold ready to go, and I just sew this line down with a quarter inch seam.
Do the same thing at the each corner. You can do the fourth corner the same way but you only sew it down about two inches or so.
Now you’ve got this whole big spot here where you can work to connect your two ends, and what I do to connect my ends, if I have the room for it and I do have plenty of room here, is I take a piece, I’m just going to take a piece and it doesn’t matter how long just long or short doesn’t matter, just going to take a piece of my binding. I’m going to open it out like this and I’m going to figure out the approximate middle of this opening which is right about here. So I’m going to take this piece of binding and I’m going to cut it off on this side of that scrap like so, only I’ve got to straighten it out because you want a nice straight line here. That’s better. That one goes there, then I’m going to bring this one over here, and I’m going to cut it off right on that side of the of the scrap piece.
Make sure it’s nice and accurate, right about here.
Like so, then you can pull this out and throw it away. Now what you’re going to do is, if you fold your placemat in half, kind of got your two edges together and you’re going to sew a diagonal seam on these two pieces. It’s going to go just like so, you’re going to sew these two together, on the diagonal.
Now if you have to pin this, go ahead and pin it, but sometimes you can just get it in there and start it and then keep it straight, which is what we’re shooting for this time.
Make sure it comes over here.
Now I like to pop it open and make sure it’s a nice fit, and if it is go ahead and cut this excess off. It should be a perfect fit when you do it this way and you cut and sew accurately. Then I’m going to just finger press the seam open, and put it back on its own fold line like so, and then I finish sewing that seam. Now we just turn it to the right side and I’ve already got blue thread in the top of my sewing machine which will work perfect for on the top of this.
Now I can fold this up and over, and stitch it down, and for this I like to go back to the other side of my sewing.
Sometimes I clip these all in place before I sew them, and sometimes I just sew them. Okay now when you get to the corner make sure your needle’s down so nothing moves. I’m going to stick my thumb in here and just poke that like right side out, and then I’m going to take the next edge and fold this up and then I’m going to take this one and just stick my fingernail right in here until I’ve got a nice mitered corner. And if I pushed my finger too far, see I’ve got not a mitered corner, and if I don’t push it far enough it’s going to be a mess, so you fold this up and I’m going to sew a little bit closer so it’s not right on this edge of my sewing machine. There.
So I fold this up and I just tuck my finger in there and see it’s a nice mitered corner and if it’s not quite right just adjust it just a tiny bit and then sew it down, right at that corner, and sew the next side.
When I get to the end I’ll just go over the beginning stitch about an inch, instead of backtacking.
That’s all there is to it.
So now you know how to make Picnic Pocket Placemats. They’re quick, they’re easy, they’re very cute, you got all kinds of different color combination options, which you always have with placemats and things. It’s got the cute little pockets, and here’s another version that we made in some completely different colors, and you can see that it looks cute no matter what colors you use it in. And this is always a free pattern. It’s free on our website at tulipsquare.com and there’s also the link in the description below. If you like this video please hit the Like button and hit the Subscribe button, and starting next Saturday for all of our faithful viewers we’re going to try something new. When we put a pattern up and we do a video for one of our patterns that’s a paid pattern, like a table runner, or a table topper, or a set of placemats, or whatever it might be, for the first 24 hours when we put that video up, that pattern will be free for our viewers. There will always be a link in the first line of the description by the comments below, and it will also be free on our website for the first 24 hours. After 24 hours it goes back to its regular price, but every time we have a paid pattern it will be free for 24 hours, and our free patterns like this will always remain free. So we hope you enjoyed this video and we hope you come back next Saturday where we will have new pattern. I believe it’s going to be for a cute table runner. So have a good week happy sewing and we’ll see you next week bye-bye.