Friday, September 30, 2011

Double Whammy Tablecloth

Hi all,
Long time no posts - no good excuses - sorry!

But hopefully, I am back with a blaze!  And in my defence, I have been logging all the crafty stuff I have done in the past few months, I just haven't actually written the accompanying blog posts.  So please forgive me with this super easy tutorial for a double sided "cheap" waterproof camping tablecloth.

To let you in on the background as to why I needed a tablecloth, myself and my family recently took a Labour day weekend camping trip to the west of Texas for a much needed break.  Luckily the weather was on our side and stayed relatively cool for the whole weekend - which made for sleeping under canvas a better experience that I was envisioning!!!  So in preparation for said trip, a couple of shopping trips to Bass Pro and Cabelas was high on the agenda....being a seasoned camper, I knew roughly what we needed and what we didn't from the sea of camping equipment currently available on the market.  One thing I knew we needed was a decent wipe clean tablecloth to put on the weathered tables at the campgrounds....not for making things pretty, but for hygienic reasons, (but don't get me wrong, if I have to have one - I wanted pretty!).  So after quickly discounting the Bass Pro and Cabela shops for not having a suitable item - it was off to trusty Walmart....and Walmart came up all aces!






Two, yep TWO vinyl tablecloths for $1.50 EACH!!!!  Now that is my kind of pricing!  And yes I bought 2, as the backing on this wonderful (but cheaply made) cloths is a weird webbing like material which would catch and pull on any wood splinters or anything really except smooth smooth plastic.  So the double sided tablecloth was born...








As it happened, one cloth was bigger than the other and so I came up with the idea of a quilt like blinding to the edge for purely aesthetic purposes.  First I laid them down on the floor, smoothing out as I went.


Then I folded the edges over, mitering the corners.  To keep everything in place, I used my clothes pegs instead of normal pins as the pins would have made unnecessary holes in the vinyl, rendering the waterproofing redundant!


Being really careful, I sewed along the two edges.  As with most "normal" quilts, you blind the middle together to prevent the cloth from slipping - but remember that weird webbing material that was on the underside? Well it stuck together like glue, so thankfully I did not have to make any holes in the middle of the tablecloth.  Yay for weird webbing!


Ta Dah......the finished cloth!!!!!!!



2 comments:

  1. Neat trick!
    You have your self a great blog! I found you on the socks on the Swiffer on Pinterest.
    I would love to help give you a boost on your views. I used to be on Blogger. I would love to invite you to be a guest blogger on Nanna and Friends. http://nanna.teoe.com/b2evolution/index.php/nannaandfriends/
    sorry about the self promo. I have 2 blogs and then I combine with my son on the 3rd one. If you are interested you can leave me a moderated comment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ideal for pedestal or four-legged tables, these wipe-clean tablecloths are elasticized for a smooth, snug, no-slide fit. website here

    ReplyDelete

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