Tutorial: sew a personalised mouse mat

I recently asked the kids what they would like to give their dad for his birthday. They were quick off the mark with ideas. Bargy thought necklaces, whilst Argy was adamant it should be Star Wars. No, no ... Lego. No wait ... maybe Star Wars Lego.

While the necklace idea came and went, Argy continued incubating his Lego plan. Finally one afternoon he built a dazzling array of Lego vehicles and pronounced them all to be gifts. They were very intricate and rather good. But frankly there was no way the plastic engineering would survive more than a day or two. If Bargy found them, they'd be toast. In a rare moment of inspiration I grabbed my camera and recorded them for posterity.

Which is how the boys came to present their dad with a one-of-a-kind mouse mat depicting, amongst other things, a Lego tractor being driven by Darth Vadar.

Happy birthday, Mr HB!


PERSONALISED MOUSE MAT

Requirements
A digital image
Good quality printable cotton fabric for top of mat
Contrasting quilting or decorator weight fabric for reverse of mat
Heavy weight fusible interfacing
Batting
Matching thread
Scissors, iron, sewing machine

Instructions

1. Print the image to your printable fabric, following the manufacturer's instructions.
   
   
   


2. Take the printed and contrast fabrics and cut both to size - remember to include an allowance for hem turnings. (I cut mine to 24cm x 21cm [approx. 9½" x 8¼"] which included 1.5cm [approx. ⅝"] hem allowances.)


3. Place the printed and contrast fabrics face down. Turn single fold hems on all sides. Press, then open the folds out again.
   


4. Mitre the corners of the hems. (The dotted lines indicate the fold lines for the hems and the third diagram shows a trimmed corner). Press with an iron as you go.
   
   
   
   


5. Cut two pieces of heavy-weight fusible interfacing and one or two pieces of batting to size. Their length and width should be about 2cm (approx. ¾") smaller all round, than your fabric.


6. Fuse the pieces of heavyweight interfacing to the wrong sides of the printed and contrast fabrics. Make sure you centre the interfacing so that you have a 1cm (approx. ⅜") perimeter left clear for stitching the mat.
   


7. Sandwich the batting between the printed fabric (face up) and the contrast fabric (face down). Match the edges of the fabric carefully.
   
   
   


8. Staying as close as possible to the edge, machine sew around the perimeter of the mat.
   
   All finished!
   
   
   
   (And just in case there are moments at work when Darth Vadar is inappropriate, we have a flip side)