A couple of years ago I tried to make a quilt coat and it was a failure. In fact it was so bad that I did a blog post and video about it. You can see that here. That coat has been gathering dust since then and it will never be worn. I couldn’t throw it out because the fabrics were so pretty. I also couldn’t donate it because it was so badly made. For me, placemats were the answer. Join me as I show you how to turn an unwanted quilt into placemats. It’s a great way to repurpose something.

You will be surprised at how simple it is to do this. My video takes you through it step-by-step. I have also outlined the steps below. Grab that old quilt or quilt coat and join me as I turn it into something more useful.

The Process

The first thing you’ll need to do is deconstruct your quilt coat. If you are doing this with a quilt you don’t have to worry about this step.

Cut away the binding and get rid of any seams. I was left with three sections that I could use. The back section was the largest so I went with that one.

While I could have made a table runner or something like that, I decided to make placemats. The back section was large enough for four that were 12″ x 16″. I cut those sections out and then it was time to bind.

Because these are placemats and will probably be washed often, I decided to machine bind them. I use 2 1/2″ wide strips for my binding. The length depends on the size of your project. In my case I needed 7 strips that were 2 1/2″ by width of fabric. That was more than enough to bind all four placemats.

I pieced the strips together to make one long strip.

The strip gets folded in half length-wise with the wrong sides facing. Then it gets pressed.

Add the binding to back side of the placemat like you would when binding a quilt. The full process can be seen in my video.

Once sewn to the back, clip the binding to the front and, using a 1/8″ seam allowance, sew the binding down. Give the placemat a good pressing and it is ready to use.

I still have the two front panels of the coat left and was able to get four placemats out of the back.

I love the way these turned out. They are going to part of a housewarming gift for someone. It’s a great way to turn an unwanted quilt into something useful.