Easy Pumpkin Applique Placemats

It’s the time of year when pumpkins are everywhere, it seems, and pumpkins have definitely been on my brain lately. My sister and my sister-in-law both had birthdays in the last two months, and I decided to make them both something with a pumpkin theme. Today I’m going to share with you these adorable pumpkin placemats I designed for my sister-in-law.

Kim is a kindergarten teacher, and she loves all things Halloween, Christmas and just holidays in general, so I knew she would love these cute appliqued pumpkins I came up with. They actually came together pretty quickly, and if you’ve never appliqued anything before, trust me, it’s not that hard. Don’t worry—I’ll walk you through all the steps. 😉

For this project, I used a placemat I already had on hand to determine the size of my finished placemats, but if you don’t want to do that, you can simply measure out rectangles of  13"x 18", and then add ¼” all the way around for the seam allowance. (The seam allowance is the amount of space between the edge of the fabric you’re sewing and the seam that you sewed. For clothing, it’s generally 5/8”, for quilting it’s usually ¼”, and I generally use ¼” seam allowance for household projects like pillows, placemats, etc.)

To make these placemats you need:

1-1/2 yd. of autumn-themed fabric (fabric A)

2 yd. of orange fabric (fabric B)

1/8 yd. of green fabric (for the pumpkin stems)

1/2 yd. of interfacing (optional)

1-2 yd. of scrap or waste fabric (fabric C) or interfacing

1-1/2 yd. of low-loft quilting batting

1 spool of brown or orange all-purpose thread

1 spool of green all-purpose thread

Straight pins

Sewing measuring tape

Chalk pencil

Sewing scissors

To begin, using your template placemat or the measurements above, trace and cut out five rectangles of fabric A for the front of your placemats and five rectangles of fabric B for the back of your placemats. If you want the front and back of your placemats to be the same, simply cut out ten rectangles from fabric A.

Next, use the pumpkin template at the bottom of this post to trace and cut out five orange pumpkins and five green pumpkin stems. My orange fabric was very thin, and I could see my front fabric through it, so I decided to cut some interfacing to place between the pumpkin and the front fabric, but this is totally optional, of course. You may not have this problem.

Once all the pieces are cut out, use the straight pins to pin first the interfacing, then the pumpkins to the middle of each of the five front pieces. Try to center them; I usually eyeball it, using my fingers to measure distance, but you can be more exact with a ruler or sewing measuring tape.

Next cut a piece of fabric C just big enough to cover the area of the pumpkin, pumpkin stem and vine for each placemat. A rectangle is fine, but shape doesn’t really matter. You can use interfacing for this (they make an interfacing just for appliqueing), but I just use an old stained pillowcase. This fabric will not be seen; its purpose is to stabilize the base fabric underneath the applique to prevent bunching or puckering—very important for a professional-looking finish! Readjust the pins on the front to include the interfacing on the back, making sure that everything lies smooth and flat. Now you’re ready to sew!

We’re going to start with the brown thread; thread it onto your machine and place your first front piece under the needle. First sew a straight stitch around the perimeter of the pumpkin as close to the edge as possible, then remove the pins. On my machine, a straight stitch is pattern 1, and I do a stitch length between 2-3. Next, adjust the dials on the machine to do a satin stitch around the pumpkin. On my machine, this is pattern 3, and I change the stitch length to between 0-1. The closer to 0 the stitch length, the tighter and better the stitches will appear.

Now sew a satin stitch around the perimeter of the pumpkin, making sure to cover your straight stitch as you go. The important thing here is to take your time and go slow—if you try to rush the fabric through, the satin stitch will not be as pretty. If this is your first time doing a satin stitch, I highly recommend practicing on a piece of scrap fabric until you get the hang of it. Once you do, it’s really not that difficult. Once all the way around, make sure to sew back and forth over the beginning of the satin stitch to help lock the threads in place, then cut the thread to remove the fabric from the machine.

Repeat with the other four placemat fronts.

Now it’s time to pin the stems to the pumpkins and sew them in place. Make sure to pin through the interfacing in the back as well. Thread the green thread onto your machine, change the settings back to the straight stitch, and sew the stems in place, using the straight stitch.  Change to the satin stitch, and sew around the sides and top of the stem, but do NOT sew the bottom of the stem with the satin stitch—we’ll do that later.

Next, use your chalk pencil to freehand a curlicue line for the vine of the pumpkin, place some pins around it to anchor the interfacing/scrap fabric on the back, then satin stitch the line. The advantage of the chalk pencil is that it will stay on the fabric, easily visible, as long as you need it to, but it washes out easily in the washing machine, so it's not permanent! I've tried multiple different erasable or washable marking instruments over the years, and the chalk pencil is, hands-down, my favorite!

At this point, you can turn your fabric over and very carefully cut off the excess scrap fabric on the back.

Now, flip the fabric back over and, using the chalk pencil again, draw the lines for the ridges of the pumpkin, then satin stitch over those with the brown thread. Some of the lines should intersect with the bottom of the stem, so this is when that part of the stem will be satin-stitched. Now the front is completely done! Repeat with the other four fronts.

Time to put it all together! Layer your front and back pieces, RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER, then place on the quilting batting and cut pieces for each placemat. Pin all three layers together, then place on your sewing machine. Using a ¼” seam allowance and a straight stitch, sew around the outside of the placemat, leaving a 3-4” gap at the bottom. To be clear, you’re sewing the placemat together inside out, so you have to leave a space unsewn to turn it right-side out when you’re done.

Before turning, make sure to trim the edges so they’re all even and clip the corners. This helps the placemat have a smooth finish and crisp corners once it’s turned right-side out.

Once all five placemats are sewn together and turned right-side out, we can move on to the hand-sewing. Don’t worry—it’s not that scary, I promise! First, you need to iron the placemats so that the edges are nice and flat. Turn the gap that you left unsewn under and iron that as well, then pin the edges together.

Using a needle and thread, you’re going to use what’s called a pillow stitch to close the gap in the bottom of the placemat. Tie a knot in the end of your thread and secure it inside the placemat. Now, holding the placemat in one hand and removing the pins as you go, zigzag from one side to the other, being careful to keep your stitches to the inside of the seam so they’re not visible from the outside of the placemat. As you pull the zigzag stitch tight, the gap will close up, and, if you do it right, it will look like you had a continuous seam all the way around the placemat. It’s kind of tricky to explain; hopefully, the picture below will make it clear what I’m describing. (And please forgive the quality—I had Monkey take the pictures while I did the sewing, and it’s hard to get a 7-year-old to understand what you want in that situation!) 

Once you’ve sewn the gap closed, tie a knot in the end of your thread as close to the fabric as possible, then poke the needle down through the seam, pulling the knot inside as you go, and come out farther down. Cut off  the remaining thread. Repeat with the other four placemats.

We’re nearly through!

Now technically, this qualifies as a quilted project because there are multiple layers of fabric sewn together, so to prevent the layers from shifting or the placemat becoming distorted in the wash, I like to sew a quilted border around the edge of the placemat, nothing fancy, just a single line. You can make it however wide you would like; because of the size of the appliques, I measured 1/2” from the edge all the way around with my chalk pencil and a ruler.

 The first one I quilted I forgot to pin, and my line ended up all bunchy and messy-looking. Time to pull out the seam ripper! Make sure you pin along the lines all the way around; the pins keep everything in place, and the finished product looks so much better!

And we’re done! It’s a lot of steps, I know, but none of it is really that hard to do with a little practice, and I think you’ll agree that the finished product is really quite pretty and definitely worth the extra effort. 

If you would like to make your own version, you can download the free pattern here; as always this pattern is free to use, and you can sell the finished product as long as you don't take credit for the design yourself. Please do not share the pattern with others; instead, direct them to this site so they can download their own copy of the pattern. 

Post a picture below of your finished product, so I can see how yours turned out, and comment  if you'd like to see more placemat designs!