The Vinyl Tablecloth

"Of all the things you’ve made for me, I really appreciate this one the least."


Well, that is not exactly what was said, but it might have been!

Let me back up a bit.


Because of vacations, birthdays and houseguests, I haven’t done much sewing in the last couple of weeks, but I did manage to churn out a vinyl tablecloth for my son, who is in pharmacy school.
We gave my son a nice (new) dining table for Christmas 2007, and I have noticed that every time I see it, it is covered with laptops, books and notebooks…the typical student’s assortment of junk. And it is beginning to have tiny scratches on it. Bummer. To prevent these scratches and unnecessary wear, I decided to make him a vinyl cover for the table. Now, I didn’t use vinyl tablecloths on our tables when he was growing up so this is not what he is used to, and he was quite surprised when I told him that the tablecloth was NOT for his patio table!

Several weeks ago, our local Walmart put all the fabrics on sale to clear them out…that is where I found the flannel-backed vinyl with UT logos on it. I figured, what the heck, it’d be fun to pull out for parties anyway! So I bought some.

It rained one day during Dh’s vacation, so instead of working in the yard, I took the opportunity to pull out the UT vinyl and make the tablecloth. To my dismay, I discovered hadn’t bought enough yardage…his table is larger than I remembered!







So I had to piece not only the circle (as usual) but I had to piece the piece that was pieced to make the circle! So, instead of one seam (or two parallel seams) across the circle, I had one seam with two others that were perpendicular to that one!














To piece this required matching the pattern…another thing I hadn’t considered when hurriedly buying this fabric!






The pattern was NOT easy to match...the plaid design printed on the vinyl was not the same distance apart all over the piece...I had to fudge the matches a little! Once I finally decided on a match point, I folded under the edge on one piece, scoring that fold sharply to make a crease. Then as I aligned the folded edge to the matching piece, aligning the designs as much as possible, I used transparent tape to hold the seam in place.












Then I unfolded and stitched along the crease made by the fold.






















I trimmed away the excess, grading the seam allowances to reduce bulk.












I folded the now-pieced fabric in quarters and used my tape measure as a radius to draw a quarter circle on the flannel side of the fabric.















Then I cut along the pencil line to create a circle.

















I set the differential feed on my serger to slightly ease the edge as I stitched around it. Then, at the sewing machine, I turned and stitched the hem…which turned quite easily due to the serging!









Once the hem was done, I searched my stash until I found a bottle of glue that was permanent and washable. From the looks of the label, I’d say I have had it a long time!














I glued down the seam allowances on the back side…piling a bunch of heavy junk on top along the seam lines to hold the seam allowances flat until the glue dried.










I gave this to DS when he came over this past Saturday. On Sunday, he emailed me this picture, so I know that at least one time, this tablecloth WAS placed on the table! Time will tell if he leaves it there or not. But at least he will have it to use for parties!