What Can You Do with a Placemat?
So I am not the first person to have this idea. Even the person I got it from, said that this idea has been around awhile! But this is my story, so….
Sadly, A.C. Moore stores went out of business. I stopped by a few times to see what was going on sale. One of the times that I stopped, I found a bunch of Winter placemats. They are a tapestry fabric style, with some metallic threads. They were also on sale for 90% off, which meant they were 12 cents each!! WOW!! I wish I had bought more, but I only bought 24 of them, for a whopping $2.88.
Placemat, Before
At first I thought I would just sew two placemats together and be done quickly. But then I realized that if I cut out another rectangle of coordinating fabric, I could have twice as many pillows! So I cut out a navy blue piece of fabric.
Then I decided that the pillow would be nicer if I ripped out the existing seam around the placemat. The pillow would also be just a little bigger by ripping out the hemmed edge. So I did that.
Here is the placemat pillow all sewn, before stuffing. I think the front looks much nicer now. Because of the new seam sewing the back to the front, you can’t see the stitching anymore on the front, that you could see on the placemat (if you look closely).
(Want more of my great sewing ideas? Here they are!)
Here is the back of my new pillow, waiting to be stuffed.
See? Here is the opening that I left.
This is another view of the opening. If I had not ripped out the hem on the placemat, the pillow would be another seam allowance smaller.
So my Placemat to Pillow took a little longer than I had planned, but I am very happy with the end result! I will probably give some of these as gifts. Shhh!!! Just don’t tell that I only paid 12 cents! : )
Pillow AFTER!
After I made this pillow, I didn’t work on the rest of them for awhile, except to rip out some more placemat seams. Then I had some silver velvet fabric leftover from another sewing project. I just had to use the leftover silver velvet on the backs of more placemat pillows! I even had enough to make an envelope style cover for my large square pillow in the middle of my couch.
I love this silver velvet from @FabricWholesaleDirect. I have good news for you, too! They are having a sitewide 3 day sale so this fabric is nearly $2 a yard cheaper than usual!!
And when it is not winter, I can flip the placemat pillows over, and use the beautiful neutral silver side if I want! The velvet is very stretchy, but holds its shape well. My sewing machine kept wanting to skip stitches. I changed needles, and it still skipped. When I got new thread, and had the new thread in both the bobbin and the top thread, then it stopped skipping for the most part. I’m not really sure how to fix that, so if you know let me know. I tried adjusting the tension (which fixes nearly every sewing problem) and that didn’t help either. I even asked another experienced seamstress and she didn’t know either.
I’ve made lots of placemat pillows, all ready to give as gifts. Of course, I will keep one or two for myself.
The winter scene will last well past Christmas.
I hope the pillow receivers like these pillows as much as I do!
