I threw ambition out the window this weekend and did a lazy sewing project.
Mom and I spent way too much time trying to find vinyl yardage we liked before it finally occurred to us that we could just buy clear vinyl and then get whatever cloth print we wanted to put under it. Doh!
I made a cowboy tablecloth a few months ago. It was a lot of work. The top was one solid piece and then the sides were sewn on in strips with mitered corners, so the seams ran along the edges of the tabletop.
It's adorable, though, and it looks great with my Fiesta dishes. We even found a boot-and-hat set of salt and pepper shakers. The hat looks exactly like the hats in the fabric.
I made another, more generic, tablecloth this weekend. I was lazy this time, though. I got four yards--our kitchen table is an older one, probably from the 1920's, and is 50 by 40 inches, so storebought tablecloths don't fit it very nicely--cut it into two two-yard pieces, and seamed them down the long sides. Then I trimmed and narrow-hemmed the edges. Since the middle seam was along a selvage edge it didn't need extra finishing; I just pressed it open (OK, I did topstitch it, but without folding it over, just to hold it down). I thought it would make a lump but you can almost not feel it on the table, much less see it.
The only mitering was on the corners of the hem:
The fabric was DQ Quilts Collection Croquet Floral Plaid (Denyse Schmidt for Joann's Craft stores) in blue. I like this. It's a bit country but not saccharine, and a bit 1940's but not too flowery, and the blue is a nice shade:
Our kitchen is basically country decor--golden-oak Colonial cabinets with blue and white walls, wainscoting, and curtains, and lots of decorative knick-knacks. Very 1989, and it's not my ideal decor but it's suitable to the house and we'd have to gut the kitchen and breakfast room, and get rid of all of our furniture, to change it. No, thanks.
Mispickel helped.
But I like it. It was much easier and the middle seam is really not obtrusive. Definitely not obtrusive enough to make me want to go to the bother of mitering corners again:
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