Holiday Tablecloth Tutorial

In case you missed my post last month over at Skip to My Lou………

Over the holidays we tend to have a lot of visitors since a lot of our family lives out of state. For the last several years I have used a solid red tablecloth for our holiday entertaining, but this year I thought it would be fun to create a new tablecloth that we could pull out for holiday entertaining. I found this fabric over at the Martha Pullen Store when they were having a big sale and I fell in love with it. I adore prints with a vintage vibe and this one was just what I was hoping to find for this tablecloth.

I designed this tablecloth to almost look like it has a table runner going down the center, however it’s completely sewn into the tablecloth. This is a fun way to use to coordinating fabrics by combining them into one tablecloth. Let’s get started………

Supplies:
3 Yards center fabric (Cut 31″ wide x 108″ long)
3 Yards border fabric (Cut 2 pieces 18″ wide x 108″ long)
Basic sewing supplies
Iron

Instructions:

NOTE: You can definitely adjust the measurements and sizing to fit your own dining room table. Ours is rather large, so this was designed for a longer table. If you have a smaller table, just reduce the length measurements to fit.

Cut your tablecloth pieces. You should have one center piece and two pieces on either side of the center piece. Sew the side pieces to the center piece by lining up one raw edge of the side piece with one raw edge of the center piece (right sides together) and sew using a 1/2″ seam allowance. Do the same thing for the other side. Press the seams open.

Make sure that if you are using a directional fabric that your print is facing the right direction. As you can see in my tablecloth, it would have looked a little silly if my Christmas trees ended up up side down.

Hem the tablecloth. The hem is very basic. Press up 1/2″ towards the wrong side of the fabric and up another 1/2″ towards the wrong side of the fabric all the way around. The only part that is a little tricky is the corners. A Dritz Ezy-Hem is a wonderful tool to have in your sewing basket. You can also use a regular hem gauge as well.

To sew your corners, fold in one corner piece by 1/2″, then fold it over another 1/2″. Fold in both sides by 1/2″ and then fold them again by 1/2″. Do this on all four corners.

Sew all the way around the hem using a 1/2″ seam allowance.