As you know, I have been working on my cheap kitchen redo.  We have a round table in my kitchen that needed new placemats.  Every store I have been to I have looked for something and have not found anything I like.  I visited Goodwill on Friday and found two Better Homes & Gardens king size pillow cases.  I loved the pattern, a different one on the back, and knew I could make placemats out of them.  These pillow cases were the ones with the opening in the back, right in the middle, although I do not think it would would really make any difference.  Of course it was not until after I had cut them up that I thought, hey this could make a good tutorial.  So the picture you will see shows the fabric, but already cut.


Here is the pillowcase I started with.  As you can see, mine had two different sides, making for a really nice placemat!  I cut the pillow cases in half and then trimmed them to about 2 inches larger than the placemat size I wanted, allowing for a seam.  

 
Since I knew the pillow case was not thick and most placemats are, I used an old placemat, not only as a filler to make the new placemats thicker, but also as a template.  


Here is what I did, after I cut my two pieces for the front and back of the placemat, I placed them together, with the outside pattern facing in on each other (meaning when I am sewing I am seeing the inside of the placemats.  I then pinned my old placemat to one side of the material and then I sewed around the outside of the placemat.  I sewed up three sides and then unpinned my old placemat, turned the placemat right side out.  Now with most items I would then sew up the rest of the placemat by hand so you cannot see a seam but I knew that with these it would not be a big deal so I just turned in the rest of the hem and sewed it up with the machine.  Obviously, you can finish it off however you like,


Here is my finished project.  What do you think?