December 11, 2009

How I Made My Jelly Roll Place Mats

I finally got around to making some Christmas place mats for Nick & I and I thought I'd share the process with you. They were super easy!



I started with a Jelly Roll. I chose a collection called Figgy Pudding by Basic Grey. A Jelly Roll, by Moda,  is a roll of 2 1/2" strips of each fabric in an entire collection. This one came with 40 strips, enough to make at least 12 place mats. You'll also need backing fabric and some fusible fleece or batting of some sort (fusible is optional). The finished place mats are about 17"w x 12 1/2"t.




Each place mat will be made from 9 strips of fabric. To make 6 place mats, pick out 18 strips and cut each one into (3) 13 1/2" pieces. This configuration leaves very little waste at the end of the strips, yeah!




Lay out all of the cut fabric pieces and choose 9 for each place mat. Put them in piles then stitch each piece together using 1/4" seams. Press the seams in one direction.




I added some ribbon to my place mats for a little extra decoration. Why not, it's Christmas? Cut backing fabric the same size as your pieced top. Cut fleece/batting 1/2" smaller (in each direction) than the backing and top pieces.




Place the fleece on the wrong side of the place mat top leaving 1/4" around each side. Press if using fusible. Now pin the backing to the top with wrong sides together. Stitch all four sides in 1/4" seam, leaving about a 6" opening for turning.


Clip the corners and turn each place mat right side out, being careful to push out the corners.











 
Fold seam allowances at opening to inside and pin in place. Topstitch close to edge on all four sides.







Now it's time to do some quilting. I went with a freehand loopy sort of stitching in silver thread. The metallic thread was a major pain to work with (be sure to use a metallic needle), but it looks great!


 
Here are my finished Jelly Roll place mats. I only made two for now because that's all I need.  What do you think?