Sewing quilted place mats with round corners and bias binding

I am not a fancy seamstress, I also battle with instructions if they are not VERY clear so these are very simple, step by step instructions to make quilted place mats. The size which I chose to do is 37cm x 30cm but you can adapt that to whatever you want. I use a printed fabric for the top and a plain fabric for the underside. You also need the same amount of quilty stuff which I think is called batting or wadding. If you want to make your life and the project much simpler choose a fabric which has printed lines to stitch along. I bought white dressmaking pencils to mark the quilting lines and they did not work at all. I then had to measure and mark each stitching line first with pins then masking tape which is way more work.

Requirements, printed fabric, plain fabric, batting (wadding) & 2cm wide bias binding

1. Cut the 2 pieces of fabric and batting to the required size.

2. Sandwich the batting between the wrong sides of the 2 pieces of fabric.

3. Stitch your first line at the top of the placemat or top corner if you are going to do diagonal lines.

(I used the ‘Coats book of Soft Furnishings’ for the basic idea, in the book they instruct to pin the layers and mark off all the stitching lines with a pencil or taylors chalk (I couldn’t find that) They then instruct to stitch rows of tacking stitches between alternate draw lines (this is sensible as the layers can slip).

4. If marking off stitching lines with masking tape, measure your gap between lines (I did 3cm gaps), place 2 pins to mark each end of the line and 1 in the middle, 3cm from the top stitching line. Then stretch masking tape across to mark stitching lines, using the pins to line up masking tape perfectly. Stitch along the line and repeat.

5. Use a cup or plate to mark rounded corners with pencil or marker, trim along these lines.

6. Edge with bias binding, on the underside of the placemat, open out one folded edge of the bias binding, the right side of the binding and the right side of the fabric must be together. Make a small fold at the end of the bias binding stitch in place along the crease on the binding (The Coats book says to pin first but I don’t bother).