Christmas Table Mat

My table needed a bit of Christmas cheer.

So I decided to make my Christmas Tree pattern into a table mat as a smaller version and complete circle.

As I suspected it would, it worked perfectly.  I followed my own tutorial:  https://freezeframe03.blogspot.com/2011/12/tutorial-christmas-tree-skirt.html

With only minimal changes as I show in this post.

I did not purchase any fabric, I pulled out my Christmas fabric stash for this table mat.

Instead of using 5” Charm packs, I cut 4” squares from my stash.

Instead of stacking 5 charm squares, I stacked only 4 squares.

Instead of aligning the wedge ruler at its 24” measurement, I aligned it at 16-3/4”. Instead of aligning right at the lower right hand corner of the strip, I moved it over by 1/4”.  Had I not moved it over, the two strips would have been too much the same width.  As with my tree skirt, I wanted alternating wide and narrow strips.

As with the tree skirt, I discarded the strip on the right and used the center and left cuts.

The rest of the circle construction follows the tree skirt tutorial.

Of course I didn’t want a hole in the center of my table mat so I had to fill that in.  I have these handy dandy circle cutting rulers.  They work like magic for cutting a perfect circle.



I sewed a long stitch around the circle then pulled the threads for a slight gather to make it easy to turn under the edge.

I pressed the edge under.

Lay out the mat so the center opening is as round as you can make it.

I then pinned the heck out of it so that the mat opening would not shift while I just top stitched the circle in place.

That worked well enough.

Since I won’t see this slightly imperfect opening once it’s quilted, I have completely forgotten it isn’t perfect.  It is not at all noticeable.  You know I’m loving that!

I have a layer of Warm & Natural batting and a backing.  I just quilted in the ditch.  (My tree skirt does not have batting as I wanted it to be very drape-able).

I sure wondered why I had so much of this fabric, but some has been put to good use here and the Christmas fabric drawer does not bulge any more.  (Room for some new pieces, right?!)

The binding is, as always for me, cut on the straight grain.  I avoid bias bindings at all cost.  LOL

I LOVE this table mat.  It measures 33.5” diameter.

There were squares leftover (because I just cut a strip then cut the strip into squares).  Too lazy to figure out exactly how many squares I needed.  So this second table mat or runner was made with the scraps.

The back looks kind of pretty too.  Bonus!

It sits so nicely on my little bench by the door.  I think it just needs a few little wrapped gifts added to it.



I love that I bought NOTHING to make these.

Merry Christmas to all my bloggy friends!