A friend had been struggling to find a colourful tablecloth she loved for her round dining table, so I decided to make one using our gorgeous Gingham + Liberty binding as a gift! The Liberty around the edge adds a touch of luxe and really pops against the timeless gingham. I picked an earthy rusty red colour, Poppy Forest D, to contrast with the Moonlight blue Gingham – this is a colour combo that is pretty popular right now and I know it will suit her kitchen perfectly.
This is a simple, quick tutorial for a beginner sewer! Grab your sewing machine and scissors and knock this one out of the park in an afternoon.
FABRIC NEEDED
I used 4m of Gingham Linen and 3 packs of our Liberty Bias to create a tablecloth that was approximately 200cm wide.
* The size of your table and your desired overhang will determine the amount of fabric you need. My friends table is 130cm wide and I wanted it to have a good amount of overhang, around 35cm each side. Remember, Gingham checks are often slightly rectangle, not square, so we want to cut the overhang fabric lengthways so we can pattern match correctly when joining. *
OTHER SUPPLIES
+ Sewing Machine, thread, fabric scissors, pins
MAKE YOUR TABLECLOTH
+ Cut linen in to 2 x 2m pieces.
+ Cut 1 of your 2m pieces in half lengthways to yield 2 pieces measuring 67.5cm x 2m
+ Pin one of the narrow lengths to top and bottom of your fat length taking care to line up the gingham print.
+ Stitch leaving 1 inch seam allowance – fold the allowance in on itself and stitch together again to prevent fraying and give a neat crisp look.
+ Repeat step for 2nd narrow length on the bottom of your fat length – be sure to have the stitching on the same side as your first piece.
+ Iron your huge new piece of fabric (approx 200x265cm) and fold in half then in half again.
+ Tack/pin a piece of string to the corner and then using marking chalk use it to create a quarter circle curve, then cut along curve through all of the layers at once.
+ Unfold and double check you are happy with your circle – mine ended up with a diameter of roughly 200cm
+ To work out the Bias needed you will need the circumference, which is your diameter x pie (3.14), plus a bit extra for joining. Mine worked out to approximately 6.3m (2m x 3.14), so I used 3 x 3m packs with some left over.
+ Attach the Bias – I joined all of my bias in to one length, ironed it to make it double fold bias and rewrapped it to make it easier to work with.
+ pin (or clip) bias on to the gingham fabric and stitch down both sides at once using your sewing machine, re-pinning + stitching the next segment of bias as you move around the circle. HOORAY FOR CIRCLES – we don’t need to mitre any corners! But you will need to join the beginning and end of the bias before stitching it down. You can find our steps for joining bias binding in this tutorial if you are unsure of this.
+ Give it an iron and you are finished.
Enjoy or gift to somebody lucky!
I used my left over bias binding to wrap mine as a gift.
xx Jen
SHOP THE PROJECT
MORE GINGHAM + LIBERTY BIAS COMBINATIONS
