Laminated Scalloped Tablecloth Tutorial (sewing project)!!

I am thrilled to be on the Riley Blake Design Team. And, to tell you the truth, I’m also a little intimidated to be on the team with such talented women. I’ve only been sewing for a couple of years and I’m still learning.

 I have a black table in my kitchen that gets used about 1,809,483 times a day. We eat on it. We do homework on it. I catch my kids painting their nails on it. It pretty much gets beat on all the time. So of course the paint is starting to wear off and I think my kids might have spilled things on it and then not wiped it up for awhile, because it has a couple of long cracks in it.

I was thinking it would be a good idea to either paint it or find some other way to protect it a little more. So when I was touring the Riley Blake warehouse a few weeks ago I was so excited to see the rolls of laminated fabric. I thought — how cool would it be to make a laminated tablecloth. I love the idea of laminated fabric for a tablecloth because I can just wipe it down. And I love clean lines, so I wanted to see if I could make a tailored tablecloth that fit the table well.

So that was my challenge in this project. And since I am new to sewing, I was a little intimidated my the project. Luckily my mom happened to be out when I was puzzling this project out. And she helped me — yay for moms!!And we decided that it needed to be as complicated as possible — so we added some scallops to the project. (Just kidding– it turned out to not be as complicated as I thought, although I was glad she helped me)

Here’s what I did.
(warning lots of pictures and steps coming up)

• The first thing was I measured my table. Since it was round, that made it a little easier.
• Then I measured the fabric. My table was wider than the fabric. So if that happens, what you need to do is cut TWO pieces of fabric as long as your table, plus I added 1/2 inch for the seam allowance.
• Then I cut the second piece of fabric in half, width-wise and sewed those two pieces of fabric onto the main piece, which increased the width to the same as the length.
• Once the fabric is the size of the width and length, I had to make it round.
• To make the fabric round, what you do is take the fabric, fold it in half.
• Then fold it in half again, so it’s quartered.
• Then lay it on your cutting surface. Now I folded one edge over to the other edge so the top folded edge was pointed. And then I folded it again. Now the fabric is folded in 1/16ths. The smaller it’s folded, the more evenly the circle will turn out.
• Now I measured the width of my table and then divided that number in half.
• I took a piece of string and a pen. I tied a loop around the pen with the string and then measured from the knot in the pen 26.25 inches and then cut the string.
• I took the cut edge of the string and places it at the top of the folded point of the fabric and pulled the string taut with the pen at the bottom.
• Then I used the pen to draw an arched line from one side of the fabric to the other. Be sure to mark on the underside of the fabric.
• I remeasured three times to make sure it was correct. And then I cut it.
• That makes a perfect circle.
• Now I had to figure out the skirt of the tablecloth. I measured around the circumference of the table and added 1/2 inch for the seam allowance. I also measured the height that I wanted the skirt to be and added 1/2 inch.
• Then I cut the strip.  I had to use four pieces of fabric and then sew them together to get a long enough strip to go all the way around the table. I think my total was 164 inches. I added a couple of inches to the total just in case.
• Now this is the tricky math part. I had to figure out how wide to make the scallops so that they would meet evenly. This took a little while to figure out. What you have to do is take your number and then see what number divides into it. I figured out that a 2 or a 3 would divide into my number. So I could make my scallops 6 inches in width.
• Then I took a ruler and drew a line in half of the width. That way the scallops only go half way through the skirt.
• To get the scallops perfect you need a protractor OR a bowl that is the right width. I happened to have a cereal bowl that was 6 inches wide – yay!!
• So then I traced the outline of the bowl onto the backside of the skirt, stopping where the line was.
• Then I folded the fabric in quarters, I had those extra two inches just in case and I left those out. Then I scored those four points. You’ll see why in a minute.
• Then I pinned the skirt to the top of the fabric, making sure that the right side were together and the seam would be underneath.
• To get the skirt lined up perfectly, what you need to do is fold the top of the tablecloth in quarters and score those edges.
• Now line the edges that are scored up and pin them. It might be helpful to even fold both pieces in eights instead of fourths.
• Once they are lined up, I scored the rest of the material in between on the skirt fabric. That makes the skirt fabric stretch a little to match the curved edges of the top of the tablecloth.
• And I pinned it like crazy. Don’t be afraid to use tons of pins.
• Once it was all lined up and pinned I discovered that I didn’t need that extra couple of inches that I had left on the end of the skirt material and I cut that off.
• Now I sewed the fabric together. Be sure to sew on the cloth side of the fabric, not the laminated side.
• I sewed all the way around until I got the the seam. I left about 4 inches and stopped sewing.
• I took the material out and matched the skirt seams up and sewed that seam, then I took the material and put it back in and sewed the last 4 inches of the tablecloth top to the skirt.
• Then I cut the scallops out. 
• And the last thing I did was sew around the scallops with a zig zag stitch. This will make the edges wear longer and it’s cute!

Don’t be intimidated by the length and steps in this project. If I can do it, you can too!!

And then I cut a little length of a coordinating fabric and lined a tray with it. All you do is spray a little spray adhesive on the bottom of the fabric and stick it onto your tray!

Be sure to check out the amazing ideas from the talented ladies of the Riley Blake Design Team. You will be amazed at their creativity!!

xoxo

PS — I am on my way back from such a wonderful Spring Break with my little family. I have so many projects coming up. It’s been nice to recharge and connect with those I love. Thank you for reading Tatertots & Jello. I appreciate you so much!!