Crafty Corner: Fitted Tablecloth

I got this adorable kitchen utensil fabric at Cool Cottons in Portland, Oregon and have been waiting to use it for something special. After my patchwork class at Gather Here I bought a rotary cutter and mat set and when it arrived, I knew it was time to make something with my great fabric.

The materials I used were my main fabric, an solid-colored accent fabric for the skirt, and some colorful rick rack.

I started by ironing the fabric and laying it out over our dining room table to measure the dimensions. I’m not going to write the dimensions in this post because your table is probably a different size than my table, basically I just want to share the pattern and sewing method for this tablecloth.

After I had the measurements I used my rotary cutter and mat to cut four panels in the brown fabric for the tablecloth skirt. The rotary cutter, ruler, and mat made short work of cutting the fabric. I used to painstakingly measure and cut with scissors but no more! Using the mat with the plastic ruler keeps all of your work even and measured correctly.

I sewed a half inch hem on the bottom of each skirt piece and then pinned them to the main tablecloth fabric.

I sewed each skirt panel to the main tablecloth fabric, leaving an inch or two open and unsewed at each corner. I wanted a snug fit to the table (hence the name fitted tablecloth) and wanted to get the corners perfect.

I measured how far from each corner the brown fabric was and then sewed a quick straight hem on the unfinished fabric to remove all of the excess length (the lengths were all different since this was the leftover of each panel).

I then sewed the remaining skirt fabric right to the corner. As you can see below, the end of the brown fabric lined up perfectly at the corner because of the hem I sewed in the previous step. I hope that makes sense or, at least, the pictures do!

With the corners done, the tablecloth sat snugly on the table and the skirt hung down exactly as I wanted it to with a crisp edge at each corner.

The final step was to sew the rick rack to the bottom hem of the skirt just to add some visual interest and another pop of color. Rick rack has kind of vintage feel to me and I just thought it went well with the pattern of the tablecloth fabric.

The finished tablecloth! Fitted, bright, and simple – totally perfect for our table. I’m really pleased with how it came out.