How To Sew A Quilted Placemat. I decided to make up a placemat with some EPP (English Paper Piecing).
Here is the how to if you want to make your own:
Supplies:
Oakshott fat eighth bundle
Scraps of linen to make a 14” X 18” piece. (I started bigger and trimmed down to size)
Batting
1 1/2” EPP 6 point 60 degree diamond papers I get mine from PaperPieces.com you will need 30 to make this one applique.
And of course your regular sewing supplies for cutting and hand stitching.
Let’s get started.
First I marked one side of my paper pieces so I knew which fabrics they were supposed to be used for.
You will need 6 diamonds for the inside star, I’m calling this my dark. You will need 6 diamonds for the row around the dark center star. I’m calling this my lightest fabric. For the outer hexagon shape, you will need 12 diamonds. I’m calling this my medium. And the accent diamonds on the outer hexagon, I’m calling my darkest. You will need 6 diamonds for the darkest.
Just make sure you mark your pieces so you understand what is going where.
With Oakshott fabric, the texture and weave is slightly different than other quilting cotton. Because of the weave, and because it is going to be EPPd, I starched my fabric first. Starch it well now and you will shrink the fabric a bit. It will also help to hold it’s shape as you are piecing now and when you need to take the papers out too.
Now you are ready to cut out the fabric. Because of the play on the light I wanted to achieve, it is important to make sure you are cutting all your similar colored pieces in exactly the same direction, with the grain of the fabric. Hopefully, you can see the little lines running through the fabric and can line up the tips of the points with that.
Since the weave is a little different, I find that I like my seam allowances larger than a 1/4”. I like it somewhere around 1/2”. This helps keep the folds and keeps the fabric from unraveling. Place your paper on the wrong side of the fabric and cut about 1/2” around all the sides.
I start on one of my sides by finger pressing the side of the fabric down upon the paper piece.
I put a knot in an accent colored thread so I can see it easier when I remove it. Put the knot along the fold and in the seam allowance. Fold the next side down and finger press.
Finish making a stitch with the folded side. Make sure that your stitch is not going through the paper. You are basically doing a large basting stitch at each corner of the diamond, just to hold the shape of the diamond so that you can sew your diamond shapes together.
Continue taking stitches around and folding down each side.
When you get to the last point, make sure to fold the last side under the first side. Whatever you do, do it the same way for all the pieces so that when you assemble the diamonds together, you will have nesting. Each corner has the new side fabric folding over the previous side. I do not tuck in my pointy tips. Instead I leave a tail. I do not put another knot in the last stitch. I just run one more basting stitch to keep it in place.
After all your fabric is basted onto the papers, press each piece well. The starch you used before you started will help now to hold the folds well.
Remember that the pointy ends of the diamonds have tails. You just fold the tail out of the way while you are stitching the shapes together. Also, when your shape is starting to get bigger, you are going to have to fold some of the pieces, including the paper inside them to get the next piece together.
When putting EPP pieces that aren’t hexagon shapes together, I find that it works best for me to put them together in parts and not just the next piece. This way, my pieces come together much nicer than if I were to put them together in a row, one after the next. I also really like to use Clover clips to hold my pieces together while I sew. My fingers are less sore after I’m done sewing.
My favorite way to stitch EPP together
Those stitches on the seams were nearly invisible. Aren’t they yummy?
I’m using a black thread here so you can see my stitches. I think it helps to emphasize my point when the black stitches are almost completely hidden when I open up my shapes. It is such a lovely feeling. Here are a few examples of front and back.
Here is the back.
Here is another front from some Hexies I am currently working on.
And the Back.
Normally, you would do a whipstitch through both layers like this. Note, this is NOT what I use. I just took the picture so you can see the difference.
I like to work on just one side at a time, instead of driving my needle exaclty perpendicular to my hexies, I like to take my needle in at an angle. I make sure my needle comes out on the fold and again, I’m just stitching through the hexie on the top.
Then I stitch through the bottom hexie, again at an angle to the piece and again with my needle coming out the fold. It is almost like a zipper, or a double whipstitch.
Back to the top hexie. I hope you can see both the angle of my needle and that it is coming out direclty on the fold line.
That is my tip. That is how I do it. Top shape, bottom shape always at an angle and always coming out along the folded edge of the hexie. When you open your shape up, all the stitching is neatly hidden inside the seam in the fold. It makes me so happy.
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Back to our tutorial...
For this star, I decided to make the inside star into hexagon shapes first, using the lightest diamonds to keep them together.
I put together the outside hexagon with the diamond detail by putting three diamonds together. As I stitched my diamond pieces together, I made sure that my points matched as I stitched and eased any difference throughout the seam.
I stitched the hexagon shapes together and then added the remaining light diamonds to complete this shape.
Then added the outside hexagon with diamond detail shapes. This time I matched the center points together and worked out on each side.
Once you are done sewing all the pieces together, press well. I like to press from the back and make sure that my intersections have the tails all nestling in a circle.
The starch from when you first started will help hold this all together nicely.
Having used a thread that doesn’t match makes it easier to cut the threads and pull them out. Press again after all the papers are out.
Now you are ready to baste your piece to your placemat fabric. I had this lovely earthy linen that I thought played nicely with the Oakshott fabric.
Layer your placemat fabric and your batting, with your applique piece on top. My piece was large, so I folded it around some batting to make my quilt sandwich. I also used spray baste because it is perfect for something this small.
I opted not to first applique the star to the top layer of the fabric. Instead, I let the spray baste hold it in place and I used my walking foot to quilt around the shape at the same time as I stitched the applique to the placemat. Remember that you need to tuck in the tails on the outside edges now. I used a long pin to fold the tails inside and pinned them down before stitching the outside edge. I used a thicker weight thread for the quilting. I echoed the shape a little outside the applique. I went back and stitched a little around some of the inside shapes too. I think the quilting helps move the fabric around making the light play even more noticeable.
At this point I trimmed my placemat to 13 1/2” by 17”. It was a fairly random size based on the size of the applique, and the size of my table and plates.
Quilt your sandwich and bind. I used the remnants of the center diamond for my binding. I cut my binding to 2” wide.
I hope you love this as much as I do. You really have to try Oakshott fabric and see how it dances in the light for yourself. That center star is all cut from the same color fabric. The way it was cut on the same grain and then reassembled in a star moves the warp and weft in a way that really plays on the light effect of this gorgeous fabric.
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