How to Make a Bauble Placemat

Brighten up your Christmas table with a festive placemat in an unusual shape - a bauble! Great for using up oddments of trim and those trusty fat quarters, this project was made with one of our favourite Christmas fat quarter packs!

How to Make a Bauble Placemat

You Will Need

• 2 fat quarters from the Traditional Trees fat quarter pack
• 0.5m Jumbo red ric rac
• 0.5m Green ric rac
• Oddments of green lace/trim
• Half a metre of fusible fleece
• Vanishing marker
• Co-ordinating thread

How to Make

1. Start by ironing your fat quarters to ensure they are smooth. Choose which will be your main fabric (in this case, red snowflakes) and lay right side down on a flat surface. 
2. Take your dinner plate and draw around it with a vanishing marker, onto the back of your fabric. Make sure you check the placement of this one, as you will need to fit two in! 
   
   
3. Draw a small rectangle at the top of the circle, approx 3x5cm to represent the top of the bauble, then cut out the entire shape. Use this as a template to trace your second one onto the same fat quarter. If your plates are too large, you can use a different fabric on the back.
   
   
   
   
4. Repeat the above on your fusible fleece. Iron the fleece to the wrong side of one of your fabric pieces - this will become your top piece.
5. Cut a strip from a contrasting fat quarter for the centre panel of the bauble. You can make this as wide as you like, mine was roughly 9cm wide. It will need to be as long as the diameter of your circle.
6. Press the edges of your strip under by about 5-8mm to create a neat edge, pin in place, then top stitch to your top piece. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Grab your pieces of ricrac and pin them onto the contrast strip, however you like. Make sure you pin this well so it doesn't move as you sew! Stitch in place with matching thread, and trim off any ends that overhang the fabric on each side.
   
   
8. Take a few scraps of green lace or trim and pin in two rows across the top of your piece, securing in place with a line of stitching at the top and bottom of the trim. Trim any excess from the edges. You have now completed the front of your placemat!
   
   
9. Place your top and bottom piece right sides together, pin in place, and stitch all the way around with a 1cm seam allowance, leaving the top of the hanging part open to turn it inside out.
   
   
   
   
10. Trim the seam allowance by half, and clip the top corners as shown, then turn inside out. Press thoroughly.
    
    
11. Press the seam allowance of the opening under. Hand-sew shut using ladder stitch.
12. Top stitch around the edge of the placemat with matching thread to stabilise the edges. 
    
    
13. Finish off by 'stitching in the ditch' - sewing along the edge of the contrast piece - top and bottom, to bind the top and bottom. Repeat across the bottom of your green lace section.