Fat Quarter Sewing: The Red Tablecloth

Having decided to make more Fat Quarter Tablecloths, and looked at my available fat quarters, naturally I needed to go shopping.

I simply don’t have eight which would work well for a tablecloth. Very sad. Also naturally, when I went shopping, I ended up with a set which only required one from the stash. Oops.

Since I’ve decided to make seasonal tablecloths, I thought I’d start with a red one for February, for Valentine’s, even though M and I don’t normally bother. This year is slightly different, though, given lockdowns and needing to break the monotony with something.

So a red tablecloth it was. I had one red fat quarter, which I couldn’t otherwise see going with any of the others in my stash anyway. I mean, I have half a pastel one, and half a purple-flower one, and almost half of a dotty one, but the plain red one didn’t really have a home.

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Until I found a seven-piece set of red-patterned fat quarters on eBay. There’s a stripey one, a gingham one, a dotty one, and four flowery ones. And then the plain one. I might only have used one from the stash, but at least I didn’t have any spares left over.

The nice thing about a fat quarter tablecloth is that it only takes a few hours to whip up. Even with the sewing machine on its slowest speed. The other nice thing is that there’s no measuring involved. Simply sew the fat quarters together. I chose to alternate the flowers with the plainer squares, and built it up in pairs.

And now I’ve made a red tablecloth, I feel the need to make a rainbow of tablecloths. A new colour each month, possibly in rainbow order.