Sailcloth Placemats

I have had the beach on the brain for some time now, probably when the heat arrived in the Midwest and made me homesick for my coastal hometown...if I can't get to the beach, I'll bring it to me! Well, I can pretend anyway...

I decided to create some place mats using canvas. Of course in this modern day, canvas is rarely used for sails anymore, but it is seriously some of the most durable, versatile material. It's flax color, nubby texture, love it! I usually keep some in my stash to stretch for paintings, but I never buy the 'Artist Canvas', I buy canvas at the hardware store! Yep, it's big, and it's cheap....that's what I'm using today.

Now typically, I would use gesso on the canvas, but I wanted the raw canvas to show in addition to the paint. I think it looks neat! For a pattern, I used a square place mat that I already have and just cut the canvas the same size, with a seam allowance. I used heat n bond to hem it, I was just too lazy to break out the sewing machine...I'm still recovering from the last sewing project I took on. Heat n bond it is!

Now Jen from Tatertots and Jello provides this free printable quatrefoil pattern (Thanks Jen!). I have been wanting to try it on something! I printed it out, cut it out (step 1), used a sharpie to draw the pattern on the canvas (step 2), carefully painted in, using craft paint (step 3). Step 4 isn't really a step, I just named it that, it 's really just the end part of step 3, you get the point. Click here to get yours!

So far, I have done three different place mats, and I want to do a fourth one in a Chevron pattern.

Of course the quatrefoil is the most intricate, and took the most time to paint, the stripe went super fast, I used painter's tape to achieve the stripes. I love the hand painted look of them!