An unexpected Project - Fitted Table Cloth tutorial

This week I am staying with our oldest child, Fangirl. She is a wonderful crafter, designing amazing pop culture cross stitches. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and mostly on Instagram by that name

As well as having a blog, and a store on Etsy where she sells her patterns and more recently kits as well, she also goes to craft markets that have a geek theme and has had a stall at the big conventions like Comi Con (Brisbane and Melbourne) and this year will go to Supa Nova as well. 

She asked me if I could make her a fitted table cloth for her stall. They are required to have table cloths and she has been using a queen sized flat sheet that she had clipped into sort of shape but was wanting something a bit more professional looking. A fitted cloth that went to the ground would mean she could hide her extra stock, suitcase etc under the table out of the way and out of sight.

The fabric I had to use was her fitted sheet. I could have bought more fabric but what was the point? That was just going to be extra cost. It worked out pretty well.

The table that she has which she takes to craft markets when she has to supply her own table is 1.8m which is the size of the tables that she is supplied at the bigger conventions so making the table cloth to fit it would work well for both. We decided it would be best to make it a little loose fitting to allow for tables that might be a bit bigger.

I measured the width of the table and cut a strip of fabric that width , plus 4cm from the sheet, cutting it across the shorter of the sides and then trimmed it back to the length of the table plus 4 cms. This was for the tablecloth top.

I cut the remaining part of the sheet into two stips, again width ways which I then joined to make one long strip. This was for the table cloth skirt.

I found the centre of the longer side of table cloth top and pinned the centre seam of the skirt to the centre of the top, right sides together. I pinned it along the front of the top piece  and stitched from one front corner to the other front corner. 

Stitching the corner was tricky and there is probably a better way to do this but I just tried to work it around as neatly as I could. I sort of did it like a mitred corner.

Then I sewed to the next corner and worked my way around it and sewed till I ran out of skirt. Then I went back to my starting point and worked back the other way around the corner and sides and along the back till once again I ran out of skirt.

 I was left with a gap of about 24". Fangirl was happy with this as it gave her access but then we realised that the piece we had trimmed off the table top piece was about the right size for the gap. I hemmed the sides and the bottom and trimmed it to fit the gap and then sewed it table top, leaving it loose on the sides and creating a flap.

And that was it. Done. In about an hour. Its not the neatest job in the world and surely wouldn't win awards. There are no doubt ways to make it neater. Maybe if I had rounded the corners a little it would have been better (suggestions for fixing this are welcome) I did warn my daughter that I am not the greatest seamstress and she laughed and said "and asking a quilter to mend is like asking Picasso to paint your garage" (a meme I had recently shared on Facebook) However it will do the job. No doubt it might benefit from having all the seams neatened and if I had an overlocker that would have made things easier. But it is done and she is pleased with it and so am I. 

When I made it I had no intention of making a tutorial for it so there are no step out photos but hopefully this describes what I did well enough to inspire you should you have need to make something similar.

I am now thinking that I will make something similar for our Handmade With Love stalls. With our glorious leader Peg on the job I won't get away with such dodgy corners so will have to come up with an improvement.