All in a Row Placemat {Tutorial}

My 'All in a Row - Quilted Placemats' pattern was created 5 years ago (though honestly, it only feels like it could have been last week). The pattern link must have appeared somewhere recently because I have received quite a number of emails requesting access to the pattern.

Rather than refer everyone back, I thought I'd re-share it here today for anyone who might like to use their scraps to make some of these fun little placemats. Also, with Christmas only a few weeks away, a nice set of these might make a lovely gift for a friend.

Now, for this tutorial, let's assume we're making a placemat that measures 14" x 18" though it can be any size you like.

You will need some strips of fabric - I'd estimate a minimum of 5" long and as wide or narrow as you like. Go with a variety of different colours and prints, or reign it in and use fabrics in the same basic colour.

You will also need some neutral fabric for the upper and lower portions of the mat - we'll call these the borders. 

I used a cream calico fabric (which is quite cheap and readily available). These fabrics need to be around 20" wide. 

A piece of batting and backing, both measuring 16" x 20" (if you're aiming for a different size of finished mat, you need to cut the backing and batting at least 2" bigger all around to account for all the quilting we'll be doing).

Decide where you want the strip of print fabrics to go (eg upper half, middle, vertically etc). 

Take the first 2 strips, put them together with right sides facing and place them at the edge of the batting. Sew this seam through the two strips and the batting. Flip the top strip over so they're both right sides facing up and quilt straight lines along both.

NB: If your sewing machine doesn't like sewing directly on the batting (some are picky like that) you can always use a piece of fabric on the back of the batting, under where the strips are going, to help the machine out.



Pick up another strip and repeat by placing it face down over the previous one, aligning the edge of the fabric, sewing the seam, flipping and quilting.

Do this until you reach the end of the batting.

Next step is to sandwich the batting to the backing and one of your neutral border fabric pieces. A little bit of glue spray helps hold down the backing fabric.

Place the first border strip face down, on one side of the scrappy strip row. Ensure the border strip is wide enough, that when flipped, it will reach the edge of the batting. Sew the seam, flip and quilt.



Repeat the above step to add the remaining border. Once both borders have been quilted, trim down the placemat to 14" x 18". You can add a little bit of extra hand quilting for some fun detail if you like and then attach the binding as you normally would.


This sounds very wordy for something that's really quite simple to make, but I hope that it all makes sense and that you have a go and making some of these 'All in a Row' placemats. 

#AllInARowPlacemat 






6 comments

  1. Another NiCe project to add to the list...xox

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  2. These kind of projects are ones that I love! It's carefree sewing, uses up pretty scraps and turns into some very useful pieces! Thank you!

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  3. Thank you . Looks like I need to do some more placemats... thanks for sharing...

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  4. Gorgeous. Thank you for creating these simple but beautiful placemats and sharing with all of us! I love your blog.

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  5. What lovely placemats! You've put together a great way to use fabric leftovers to make something beautiful. These would certainly make lovely gifts. You're very generous to share your design here. Thank you!

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  6. Super cute placemats! Thanks for sharing the pattern.

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