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1 Yard Projects Session 7: Plate Holder

National Sewing Circle Editors
Duration:   12  mins

Description

In this session you will learn how to make fun plate holders that are perfect for the backyard or the camper. See how to construct the holder from start to finish as well as learn how to adjust the size according to plate size if necessary.

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Our last Sewing for the Home project is a really fun one that you can use either maybe out on your back porch if you're gonna have a barbecue and maybe you're gonna pack a picnic basket or something, or if you wanna keep these in your camper so you always have plates and napkins, knives, forks, spoons, everything ready to go. It's all in one handy little pack. So all you do is you open it up. You have your plate, you have a little pocket for your napkin, all of your silverware. And when you wanna actually use this, you can either turn it over, use this as your place mat just like that.

Or maybe if you're not a place mat person, this entire thing is made out of just cotton. So you could use it as your cloth cotton napkin. If it gets dirty, you can just throw it in the wash. You may need to give it a little press then when it comes out of the dryer to get rid of any wrinkles. And then you're ready to repack your little caddy for all of your utensils on your plate.

And again, keep this either in your picnic basket, in your camper, and you're always ready to go. So this is a super easy project to put together. It consists of four pieces, that's it. We have a front and back piece, our green here, and we have a lining. And then we have two little pieces we use for our pocket.

The pocket is a five inch by six inch rectangle, two of them stitched right sides together. And we left an opening for turning, and I've pressed the end of those edges. So my pocket is ready to go onto the front of my section here. But what you need to know is how big to cut your long rectangles of fabric. And this will actually depend on the size of plate.

I tried to buy what I thought was the standard plate. Most paper plates are this size. Most if you go to the camping section and buy plates, they're all about this size. So for mine, my rectangle that I cut is 11.5 inches by 22 inches. This gives me enough room to stitch my edges together, and the plate fits but it fits nice and snug so it's not gonna come out.

And it gives me plenty of room to too be able to fold over the top and have my little pieces of Velcro. So if your plate is different size, you'll need to adjust. So what I did was my plate was about 10.5 inches, so I gave myself an extra inch in the width. And then what my width was, I pretty much just doubled that. And that's a good place to start.

Maybe if you cut your rectangle and it's obviously too small is a problem 'cause you won't cover your plate. Too large would I guess be fine. You could overlap it more. But you just kinda want it to barely overlap enough to be able to put some Velcro in place. So you're gonna start by placing your plate how you want it to sit into your piece of fabric here.

I want it to be able to fold up and cover at least half. So I can then slide my plate out of the way. And this is gonna give me an idea of where to position my pocket. So I can lay it right in the center here. I can go ahead and measure to make sure that I do have it centered about 3.5.

3.5, so I'm good there. And now I can put a couple pins in place like this. I'm just gonna put them in the top first. Unfold it, and then I can put more pins in and I would just stitch the perimeter. And so what you wanna do when you're putting your pocket on is make sure that your opening for turning is along the bottom edge.

That way when you stitch the sides and bottom edge to actually hold your pocket in place. you're going to secure your open and close same time you're putting it onto your project. So that makes it really quick and easy. So again, you would just stitch right around those edges just like this is here. Now you need to put on your Velcro, and you wanna put your Velcro on before you actually stitch your pieces together 'cause I think it just makes it a little bit easier.

And also then you don't have the stitching from the Velcro showing on the right side of your project. So if you go back to how your piece is going to be folded like so, you can visualize where your Velcro is going to be. So you are going to put two pieces on your green outer fabric. It doesn't matter which side of the Velcro it is. It can be either one.

Just want two of them here. And then your next pieces of your Velcro are going to be in your upper corners. But obviously this is going to be on your lining fabric. So you would bring your lining fabric in. Let's move this out of the way.

Next to it like so, and you're going to put your pieces of Velcro in. And I'm just placing them here for now 'cause I'm going to measure. What I wanna do is make sure that my Velcro is the same distance from the center to the outer edge here as it is on my lining piece also. That way when I fold it over, things are going to line up. So what I'm gonna do is take and measure an inch and a half.

So I have my little gauge set at an inch and a half, and I'm gonna put that on the edge of my fabric. And I'm gonna put my piece of Velcro, the center of the Velcro right there. And then I also want the center of the Velcro to be one inch from the upper edge. So I'm one inch from my upper edge, inch and a half from the outer edge. Go ahead and put a pin in place, hold it secure because this is sew-on the Velcro.

If you wanted to use the adhesive kind, you could. I like to sew in. That way I know that if I'm just going to sort of flip it open really quick that my stitching is going to hold probably better than maybe just some adhesive. So again, an inch and a half from the outer edge. We want an inch from the top, so I'm gonna push that guy up a little.

Get a pin in place like so. And before I forget what my measurements were, I wanna go ahead and make sure I'm gonna do the same thing with my other pieces of Velcro. Inch and a half from the outer edge. Inch down from the top. That one looks good.

And get a pin through there. And our last one. So inch and a half. And inch, okay. So now that they are pinned in place, you have several options when it comes to actually stitching your Velcro in place.

Some people like to just take and you can just sort of stitch over it. You could even make an X over it. Anything to just secure it onto your fabric. I like to make sure that all of my edges are secured because if I'm peeling this open or even just peeling apart two pieces of Velcro, example here with my little samples, what's going to get the most tension are those edges. When you're peeling it apart it's the edges where you're either grabbing or where the fabric is attached to, that's the part that's gonna get the most tension.

So I wanna make sure my edges are completely stitched down. So to do that I'm actually going to use a blanket stitch and go all the way around the edge of my Velcro. So I'm going to set my machine for a blanket stitch, just my standard pre-programmed blanket stitch. And then all I'm gonna do is stitch all the way around the outside edge of my piece of Velcro. And this is going to ensure that even if I'm super excited to get to my plate for some reason and I rip it open really fast, that I'm not going to pull that elastic...

Or sorry, that Velcro too much to where it comes on done. Okay, so it's a pretty small circle. Go fairly slow, stopping to adjust when you need. And just keep going all the way around the outside edge. And again, it's white Velcro, so I have some white thread.

If you wanted to make this an extra sort of decorative element, you could match the thread to your background fabric instead of actually matching it to the Velcro. That's entirely up to you. I am not necessarily worried about seeing stitching or not seeing the stitching. I just wanna make sure that my Velcro is secured in place. Keep going around that outside edge.

And I'm just going to overlap where I started. And then I know my stitching is nice and secure. Okay, so I would just repeat that process three more times. I have four pieces of Velcro to stitch on and to stitch them all in the exact same way. Then once my pieces of Velcro are stitched in place, I can actually stitch my front and my lining pieces together.

And this you have seen a million times in this video already. All we're gonna do is put our rectangles right sides together, and we're going to stitch the perimeter. The only thing you wanna make sure that you do is that you have your Velcro on one end on your main fabric and your Velcro for your lining fabric is on the other end. It really wouldn't work out if you had them on the same end. So that's the only thing you need to consider.

You line your pieces up right sides together, pin them in place, stitch the perimeter like you've done several times already, leave your opening for turning, and then turn it right side out. And when you do that, you then get your pieces turned right side out. Everything is nice and your corners are pressed out. Your Velcro is all lined up perfectly. And the last thing that you have to do is just re-fold up the bottom of your little pouch and run one more line of stitching right down this edge.

So this is actually a very quick and easy project. You could get a yard or so a fabric and make a couple of these. You could even get more fabric, maybe make a set of four or six depending on how many people you have in your family. And just like that, you can easily have a nice little pack if you will ready to go again in a picnic basket, out in the RV that's already for the next time that you want to go have lunch outside somewhere. Super cute, and easy to make, and really fun.

So I hope you enjoy this project, and I hope you enjoy all the projects that you can make for your home whether you're sewing in your kitchen, sewing for your living room, your bedroom closet, your backyard barbecue. There's so many things that you can make for your home that you can personalize and sort of make it special to you rather than just going out and buying something. So they're really fun, quick and easy, and I hope you give them all a try.

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