My little grandson recently celebrated his first birthday, and was having a very special family birthday party, and to mark this special event, I decided to make a very special project for it! When I saw the Let's Celebrate tablemat by Hatched and Patched on the Poppy Patch website, I knew it was just what I was looking for! This pretty kit contained these pretty fabrics also designed by Hatched and Patched - all I had to do was add the embroidery threads and interfacing. A very fine nibbed Micron Pigma pen was used to trace the stitchery design along with a lightpad, then I was ready to pick out the thread colours that I wanted to use. I did change a couple of colours from the ones suggested on the pattern, to match the muted tones of the fabrics...
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...using very simple embroidery stitches, these cakes look rather delicious don't they! Once the hand embroidery was completed, using the circular template provided with the pattern, and leaving a generous quarter inch seam allowance, the top was cut out. The edge was turned over and initially slip stitched to the blue spotted fabric. The blue fabric has a scalloped edge, the template for this is also provided in the pattern. Once the table mat was constructed and tuned the right was through, I decided to topstitch along the scalloped edge, using a 50wt Aurifil thread to match the fabric...
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...I chose a finer thread than usual for the topstitching as I wanted it to blend in rather than be too obvious. As you can see, I also topstitched around the edge of the appliqued circle, stitching through all the layers. I didn't use any wadding for this project, however I did add a layer of fusible woven interfacing to the back of the blue spotted fabric which added a bit of "body" to the table mat. The only thing that was left was the label - I used a couple of small scraps of fabric leftover from the table mat, along with a few leftover embroidery threads. The label was then hand appliqued to the back of the mat...
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...unfortunately I didn't manage to take any photographs of the bithday cake or the table mat at the birthday party, but as it's a mat that can be used for all our future celbrations, it will also be used for a family tea party on Easter Saturday afternoon.
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