I was at my friend Lisa's house the other day. She has this wonderful built-in rustic kitchen banquette where the family eats their meals. There were these simple placemats out on the table that day, which looked like the caning cloth you use for furniture, laminated in plastic.
Me: "Those placemats are great. Plastic and cute. I've been looking for some plain placemats like that forever, everything I see is too crazy and we're too messy for cloth ones."
Lisa: "Would you believe these are the same ones Paul's family used when he was a kid?"
Paul is her husband. Not an old man, but there's a little age on those mats, and they still seem to be going strong. It got me thinking. My instinct these days is to move away from plastics in most areas of my life when I can. Perhaps it is because I am a child of the 70's, but no casual dining experience is complete in my house without a plastic placemat. (Of course, if you came over for a meal, we would use the nice, cloth ones~handmade, even.) But for our 3 squares a day plus snacks, durability and wipability are absolute necessity.
I thought I'd try making some out of fabric I like. We have lots of these plastic ones from school projects, and I love those, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to have a more uniform looking set.
(shows both sides)
Here's how I made these:
To make a set of 4 placemats, each 11" x 17" finished.
1 yard each of 2 fabrics (my fabric A and B are from the Lush line)
1 yard of fusible webbing (I used HeatnBond Lite, but there are many to choose from)
iron set to cotton, no steam
laminating machine (I used our local Kinko's)
*Cut out four 11" x 17" rectangles from fabric A, and four from fabric B.
*Cut four 11" x 17" rectangles from the fusible webbing.
*Iron one fabric A rectangle smooth, right side facing down. Then add on the layer of fusible webbing on back, follow instructions for ironing on to fabric (careful not to iron it onto your ironing board or get it on your iron). When you've ironed it completely on, allow to cool slightly, then peel off fusible webbing backing. Iron one fabric B rectangle smooth, then lay on top Fabric A, printed side facing up
layers are like this- Fabric A, wrong side up, with fusible webbing ironed on
Fabric B, right side up, on top
*Carefully iron Fabric B, to adhere it to Fabric A. Trim rectangle down to 10 1/4" x 16 1/4"
*Follow directions for laminating machine, centering each fabric "sandwich" in the laminating sleeve so all 4 sides will adhere well (I ran each placemat through the machine twice, to be sure all the edges adhered together nicely. I highly recommend this extra step, and don't worry about that person behind you giving you a dirty look).
These just happen to go very nicely with my Orla melamine plates (which we also use everyday). I ended up making 5 placemats because I often look up and find an extra kid at my table, and they should feel a part of the group too. I actually looked at the Orla cork backed placemats at Target thinking those would work, but decided to keep with my original plan. The cost to laminate each of these was $4, so including the cost of the fabric, there was no real savings doing it myself in the short term. But I figure if these last half as long as Lisa's, they are completely worth to me.
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Thank you all so much for you Boomerang! enthusiasm. I posted over on the blog today about Dr. Seuss's b-day, which was this past Monday (my kids are actually celebrating today at school due to no school this past Monday). If you're looking for a Boomerang story on Seuss, check out episode 4-10. Its what Emma, Ian, and I will be listening to this afternoon. I plan on spending this weekend reading, I'll let you know what I read next week. Have a great weekend!
