Sewing the Tablecloth

Beth Bates: Hi, I am Beth Bates with sewteacher.com. Today, I am teaching you how to make a lined tablecloth. In this particular step we are going to be sewing the lining to the face fabric. Of course the face fabric, the pretty side is facing the lining because we will be turning it inside out later. Okay, I have got my foot down and I am ready to go. I will of course pull out the pins as I go. Notice how when I am sewing I pull gently. This will help it so that when you are finished you won't have like a slight gathering or puckering.

So gently pull. Back tack, do again and as I sew all the way around I am going to continue to gently pull those ends and pull out the pins as I go. Please notice that my end seams from the needle, I actually have a piece of measuring tape here but you can put a little sticky as a half an inch. So in other words, I am making half inch seams. When we get to a corner, lift up your foot, turn it, sewing all the way. Okay we are going to continue to sew all the way around the tablecloth using a half inch end seam pulling out the pins as we go. Remember when you get to the end leave that opening so we will be able to turn it inside out.

Okay so now we are back at the table. We have finished stitching together the lining and the fabric all the way around. Of course, remembered our opening because we will be turning it inside out. Before we turn it inside out I want to snip off the very edges on the corners. Be very careful not to actually cut your stitching but if we cut this off like that when we turn it inside out we will get a much more sharper point there. Cut off again. Cut off again and any loose threads, those off as well, cut it off again, okay.

Now, let's find that opening that we left open. Here it is and we reach through and I kind of like to hook the corners there first, next corner and you are going to again poke it through, nice sharp points looks professional, as does the lining. Even if you use an old bed sheet, I recommend the lining to just give that designer touch. Okay, so we are going to gently pull it through.

Okay, and before we stop, stitch it closed, we are going to iron it and we are going to nice edge it and again this is what the professionals do. I will it turn like this. We will lay it out, adjust this. Now if you look here closely you can see I am going to kind of pull apart the face fabric, the red face fabric and the lining and I will leave a little bit, kind of roll it back so a little bit of the face fabric shows. Now don't get crazy and do like a half-an-inch, just a little bit. This is called nice edging. Take your iron for using at silk or any kind of fabric that you are concerned iron might ruin, be sure to put a piece of scrap lining or cloth on top so you don't damage it. Silver silks, Tapa does things like that. This can tolerate the high heat, I know for a fact.

Okay kind of roll it and this is kind of tedious so again you are not going to wash the whole thing but I am going to go all the way around. Again, pressing with my fingers, opening these seams a little bit, gently rolling, pressing as I go. Now I am going to go all the way around till I get to the opening again and then at that point I will talk to you about ironing a nice edging that area.

We have stitched all the way around. We turned it inside out. We snipped our corners and of course the last step was nice edging it, we ironed it. So you can just a little bit of the red pokes through. The last thing we need to address is this opening. Now obviously we do not nice edged that yet because it's not sewn closed. What we are going to do is sort of fold it like so, so that a little bit of the red is sticking out. You fold both ends under. Be very careful not to burn yourself when you do this and iron that and pin it. Okay, we are going to iron and pin, iron and pin all this opening closed. Getting that white right on the edge. We want to look as neatly as possible even though it's going to be on the under side, we still want it to be as neat as possible.

Okay don't forget the pin as you go. We are going to continue ironing these two edges together underneath. Nice edge style, putting them together and then next step will be sewing the tablecloth closed with the sewing machine.