New Tablecloth, No Pattern Used

I’ve been in search of a new tablecloth for a couple of years now.  I never realized finding an oval tablecloth (in anything other than a solid polyester, blah!) would be so difficult.  Am I the only one on the planet who owns an oval table?  And are oval table owners only worthy of ugly tablecloths???  This is when sewing skills prove priceless . . . if fabric manufacturers would see fit to produce fabric wider than 54″ for the home sewing market!!!  That said, here is my newly sewn tablecloth, and I LOVE it.

My table, without the leaf, is 42″ wide and 60″ long.  Therefore, the sides are slightly shorter than I would have liked them to be, but all in all I’m very satisfied with the result.  The fabric I used is Rural Jardin by French General for Moda.  It is a linen/cotton blend and is 54″ wide.  I ordered 2 1/2 yards from one of my favorite fabric stores http://www.fatquartershop.com/ .
Here’s how I made it:  I started by prewashing my fabric, ironing it, and laying it out on the floor to mark my sewing lines. 

I then took an old tablecloth purchased a number of years ago and placed it over the top of my fabric so I could “draw” my sewing lines.  Before layering in this fashion I did mark the center of my fabric and the center of my existing tablecloth by folding each in fourths and using a pin to mark the center.  Then I matched and pinned the centers when I layered them.  It then looked like this: (See how the fabric is not quite as wide as it really should be?  Oh well, it can’t be helped.

I simply traced around the tablecloth with a washable fabric marker.  I did not leave much of a seam allowance (only about 1/4″) because I knew I would finish the edges on my serger with a rolled hem.  My tracing lines looked like this:



There was no need to even cut around my traced lines because the serger does all that for me.  I just took it to my machine and stitched away.  

Here is a close-up of the rolled hem:

Some time ago I made a table runner using the same line of fabric (100% quilting fabric, no linen) and it looks great on top of my table with my new tablecloth.