How to make picnic wraps and cloth

Create your own picnic cloth with four matching cutlery wraps that double as napkins for stylish and practical open-air meals. Use a contrasting accent fabric to make a decorative binding for the cloth and to make cutlery pockets on the wraps.

You will need

Materials

• 100% linen plain base fabric, 100 x 200cm (or 150 x 150cm, depending on fabric width)
• 100% cotton accent fabric, 110 x 50cm

(If you just want to make the wraps, you’ll need 100 x 100cm base fabric and 26 x 26cm accent fabric)

Tools

• Scissors
• Iron
• Sewing machine
• Needle & thread
• Pins

How to make

The wraps

Step 1

Cut out four squares of 50 x 50cm base fabric and four squares of 13 x 13cm accent fabric.

Step 2

Take one base fabric piece. Pin and press a double 1cm hem on all four sides. Set your machine to a medium-length straight stitch and sew the hems in place close to the inner fold.

Step 3

Now take one accent fabric piece. Pin and press a double 1cm hem along the top edge. Machine stitch in place close to the inner fold.

Step 4

Pin and press a 1cm hem along the side and bottom edges. Remove the pins.

Step 5

Position the pocket on the base fabric, right sides up, in the bottom left-hand corner. Ensure the top of the pocket faces the top of the wrap. Pin in place.

Step 6

Machine stitch around three edges, leaving the top open. Keep your stitching close to the edge of the pocket. Ensure you reverse at the start and end of stitching. Repeat for the other three wraps.

The picnic cloth

Step 1

Cut out 100 x 100cm base fabric and 4 strips 110 x 7cm accent fabric.

Step 2

Pin two accent fabric strips together at one end, right sides facing. Machine stitch with a 1cm seam allowance to make a longer strip. Join all strips like this, until you have one long strip. Press seams open.

Step 3

Fold strip in half lengthways with wrong sides facing (so you still have a very long strip). Iron fold.

Step 4

At one end of the strip, open fold out and fold the raw edges towards the centre, then re-fold it.

Step 5

Starting midway along one side of the base cloth and beginning with the neatly folded end of accent fabric, pin the strip to your cloth, lining up raw edges. Pin it along the cloth until you reach the corner.

Step 6

Machine stitch with a 1cm seam allowance, stopping 1cm before the end. Put needle down into fabric and pivot fabric so the last few stitches run diagonally, into the corner. Finish stitching when you reach the corner edge; cut threads leaving a tail.

Step 7

At the corner of the base fabric, reposition your fabric strip so it follows the next edge of your base cloth. Match up the raw edges down the side and pin in place. Starting at the top, machine stitch down the side with a 1cm seam allowance, stopping 1cm before you get to the end. Finish by sewing on the diagonal, towards the corner as before.

Step 8

Continue until all sides of the cloth are covered. Trim fabric strip if necessary, so there is a 2cm overlap.

Step 9

Fold the strip over the raw edges to the other side, then pin and press in place to cover the line of machine stitching and all the raw edges. Do this all the way around. Hand-stitch in place on the reverse of your cloth.

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