How to Make a Rag Quilt Placemat

Have you ever wondered how to make placemats with fabric?  Then this placemat tutorial is for you!  You will love how easy it is to brighten up your table with this colorful and easy Rag Quilt Placemat Tutorial.

How to make a Rag Quilt Placemat

We have a large breakfast area that is a big focal point of the kitchen.  When the table is not in use, I like to keep the table clear and dressed with coordinating decorative placemats and a centerpiece.

Making your own fabric placemats is actually really easy!  I have made several styles of placemats to coordinate with the season and my current decorating theme.  (I’ve made some good ones – see the other placemat tutorials I’ve shared here.)

My kids are pretty messy eaters, and we definitely need to be using placemats to protect the table.  The issue I have with my DIY placemats though, is they end up being purely decorative as I’m too afraid to use them since once washed, they never look as good as when I first made them!

I have a love-hate relationship with the plastic/vinyl placemats you can purchase from the store.  (Love how easy they are to clean/hate that if a kid spills any liquid and I don’t notice, moisture gets under the placemat and will mar the finish of the table – plus they don’t offer any protection from heat.)  So washable fabric placemats are definitely what our family needs.

My solution to this placemat conundrum?  Make a set of “pre-distressed” Rag Quilt Placemats that I won’t be afraid to wash!

This style of Rag Quilt Placemat is meant to be washed over and over.  The more you wash these placemats the fluffier and softer the edges will be – which is what I need in a placemat.  I definitely won’t be afraid to throw these DIY rag quilt placemats in the wash.

The fabric I used for these placemats is a cotton twill from Joann’s. (They reverse to a grey ikat rprint on the other side.)

I will admit, once my rag quilt placemats were done, I had second thoughts about putting them into the washing machine, lol!  This fabric was just so pretty and once again!  I “manned up” and forced myself to drop them into the wash, lol.  I really do think they turned out pretty good and as a result, we’ve even been using the table more over the breakfast bar, which is always a good thing.

Other easy quilt projects you might enjoy:

• Free Motion Quilting – Embellished Towels
• Easy Fabric Ornament Gift Toppers Tutorial
• Quilted Pocket Camera Cover Tutorial
• My First Quilt! (plus lessons learned…)
• Jelly Roll Stripwork Dress

How to Make Placemats

Placemat Tutorial notes:

• You might opt to make a reversible placemat.  If so split the fabric amount in half and purchase two coordinating fabrics
• If making a reversible placemat, make sure to put a thread color in the bobbin that coordinates with your bottom fabric

Materials needed to make a Rag Quilt Placemat:

• 1 1/4 yard fabric ( makes 4 placemats)
• fusible cotton batting
• thread
• sharp scissors
• ruler
• disappearing ink marker
• iron
• other basic sewing supplies

Instructions:

Step 1.  Cut out fabric and batting.

Cut 2 pieces of fabric 14 inches tall by 19 inches wide.

Cut 1 piece of cotton fusible batting, 13 inches tall by 18 inches wide.

Step 2: Assemble Placemat.

Sandwich the batting between the two pieces of fabric.

Iron both sides of the fabric pieces to fuse the batting in place.

Step 3: Quilt the placemats together.

Measure 5/8 of an inch from all four edges.  Using your disapearingink marker, mark the lines and sew along the marks.

Using a ruler and the disappearing ink pen, draw straight lines at a 45 degree angle in both directions as shown below.

To make the quilting process even quicker, try to get your lines to intersect along the edges.  (I managed to get these marks to intersect on a couple of my placemats and I was able to quilt the entire placemat without lifting my needle.

Sew along all your marked lines.

Step 4: Finishing the placemat.

Tie off and trim any loose treads, using the fray check where needed.

Check the batting placement around the edges of the placemat, if it’s hanging out too much in any one spot, you’ll want to trim it just a bit.

Using a pair of sharp scissors, snip the edges of the placemat in 3/8 inch increments around all 4 edges.  Take care not to cut into the seam around the border of the placemat.

Toss the finished placemats into the washing machine and dry on high heat.  (you might need to repeat for another cycle for your desired rag finish.

Here is my placemats after the 1st wash and dry.  (I think they need one more wash/dry cycle for the edges to rag/fluff up more.)

That’s it, you’re done, enjoy your new placemats!

Let me know if you end up making any of these!