Hi everyone,

Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone is having a lovely day so far. Just to make your day even brighter, we’ve got our weekly Winsday on our Facebook Page. We are giving away some of our adorable Paddington Bear fabric!

Time for our How To’s Day! Today we are featuring our tutorial for our absolutely gorgeous Venn Placemats. Our Venn Placemats are the perfect mix between clean design aesthetic and keeping your surfaces, well, clean. We know that our mathematicians and designers will especially adore the style of our placemats. Have fun choosing different and unique print combinations! The simplicity and modernity of our Venn Placemats would work in any interior space. And because they are oh-so pretty, you’ll want to leave them as added decor on your dining table.

We offer two sizes of our Venn Placemat in this tutorial – a larger mat with the full Venn diagram look and a smaller mat, that is equally stunning. We chose to style ours with our Rise & Shine Collection, and think the blues, greys, and yellows would work wonderfully in any space.

Want to make your very own Venn Placemats? Click MORE to see the full tutorial!

VENN PLACEMAT TUTORIAL

SUPPLIES:
For each place mat:Note – all quilting cotton is from Rise & Shine (44” wide) from Camelot Fabrics

NOTES:
1. Please wash, dry & iron your fabric before beginning.
2. Use a 1/4” seam allowance throughout.
3. Unless otherwise directed, all seams are sewn Right Sides together.

CUTTING:
1. Print the Venn Diagram Placemat Template PDF at 100% actual size, and cut out the pieces. Tape the (2) parts of the Crescent together, aligning the numbered triangles.
2. Trace the templates onto the Wrong Sides of your cotton as directed by the diagrams on the previous page. Cut out each piece from your cotton.

ASSEMBLY:
1. Pin & sew the inner curve of each Crescent piece to the side of (1) Center piece as shown, taking care to align the corners & notches exactly. Nested curves like this one can be tricky to pin, so use plenty of pins inserted at right angles to the edge of the fabric.
We like to position the Crescent piece as the upper layer, since it’s more likely to pleat. Having it on top as we sew the seam makes it easy to keep the fabric from bunching.
As with any curved seam, the trick is to go slowly and maintain an even seam allowance. We also like to stop every few minutes to smooth out any fabric being pushed out of line by the presser foot. For best effect, lower the machine’s needle into your work, lift the foot, smooth out the fabric, then lower the foot and resume sewing.
Don’t cut the backing or batting just yet.

Mini-mat: Press the seam toward the Crescent piece, and the top is done! Wasn’t that quick?

Large Placemat:You’re not far off – just sew the 2nd Crescent piece to the Center’s remaining edge, and you’re done piecing the top. Press your seams toward the Crescent pieces, and Bob’s your uncle. Time to quilt.

QUILTING:
1. Layer the Mat top with the batting & Backing – the cottons’ Right Sides should face outward, with the batting between them.
2. Pin or baste the layers together all over the mat’s surface, and quilt as desired.

Here’s how we did it:
We sewed 1/4” inside one edge of the Center, then backstitched 1/4” and sewed back up the other side, still 1/4” from the edge.
At the top, we backstitched 1/4” again and sewed 1/4” inside the original quilting seam.
We kept on with this method until the entire Center piece was quilted, then quilted each Crescent piece in the same manner.

Tip:
As when sewing the seams in the Assembly section, it’s a good idea to periodically lower your needle, lift the foot and smooth out your work.

3. Trim off the excess batting & Backing.

BINDING:
1. Open up your binding tape and place one end against the edge of the mat, with the outside of the binding against the top of the mat.
2. Fold back the end of the binding, and begin sewing it to the mat as shown.

3. Continue sewing the binding to the mat, all the way around the mat’s perimeter. When you come to a corner in the large placemat – you guessed it! – put in the needle, lift the foot and turn the work, smoothing out any wrinkles in the binding before lowering the foot and resuming the seam.
4. Once you’ve sewn binding all the way around the mat, continue the binding an inch or so over the beginning of the binding and trim the excess bias tape.
5. Wrap the binding tape around the edge of the mat and whipstitch the edge of the binding to the backing fabric by hand.

We hope you have enjoyed this week’s How To’s Day!! If you decide to give this project a try, we’d love to see! You can send your pictures to info@camelotfabrics.com. Have a great day, everyone! :)

Happy Sewing!