Chalkboard / Placemat tutorial.

I saw a few of these on Etsy recently as I was buying laminated cotton for my seat covers and have been dying to have a go ever since! 

I cut a rectangle of laminated cotton (I love this Robert Kaufman cheeky monkeys design!) and a rectangle of chalk-cloth fabric both about 32cm X 46cm. I also cut another small rectangle about 13cm X 9cm of the patterned laminated cotton. 

I then hemmed 2 sides of the smaller rectangle as shown here with a generous hem at the longer edge:-

I placed this smaller rectangle on the chalk-cloth and tacked it to the Left bottom corner. I then sewed a vertical line 3cm from the RH hem as shown.  (note the top edge in the picture is not sewn to the chalk-cloth but left an open pocket)

 I placed the whole chalk-cloth right side down against the right side of the large Monkeys rectangle.

 As pins were no good on this fabric I used sellotape! There's probably a better solution out there (Auntie Peggy will know I'm sure!) but as it was that was what I had handy and it seemed to work!

I sewed along 3 edges then trimmed the fabric close to the stitches. I used a long stitch at around 3 in length as I didn't want to perforate the fabric too much and risk tearing. 

I then turned it inside out.

Before top stitching and sewing up the remaining side I again got out the sellotape! 

 

 Confession: I actually ended up unpicking all my topstitching and re-starting it but this time with a walking foot on the sewing machine. The regular foot stuck on the laminated cotton and ended up bunching the thread a little. The walking foot made a huge difference!
So here is the finished result - a chalkboard on one side complete with holder for chalk and pocket for wipe cloth.

 Then on the other side a handy and happy place-mat!

 It neatly rolls up for travel.

 I just need to suss out a way to fasten it in it's rolled state now - watch this space for an update!

Your comments make my day! Do let me know what you think!