Sewing Room Organization Pt 2: Sewing Machine Mat

Last week I showed you all how I made an organizer for my ironing board. If you didn’t see it, you can check it out HERE! This week, I’m continuing on in my attempt to reorganize and beautify my sewing room. I made a non-slip organizing mat for under my sewing machine to hold all my most used sewing items so I don’t have to search through my drawer for everything. I will walk you through all the steps so you can make one too!

Organizer Materials Needed:

Woven fabric in coordinating colors (I used quilters cotton)
Coordinating thread
Sewing machine
Iron
Gripper fabric or non-slip pad
Optional: buttons or other embellishments

Cutting Your Organizer Pieces:

Main fabric: (2) 16″ X 20″
Large pocket: (2) 5″ X 20″
Half pocket: (2) 3″ X 20″
Gripper fabric (1) 6″ X 12″
Binding pieces:
- Perimeter: (1) 3″ X 75″
- Pockets: (2) 3″ X 20″

Starting With the Back:

Take one of your main fabric pieces and your gripper fabric piece and find the center of each and mark
Measure down 3″ from the top of the main fabric and lay your gripper fabric on top of your main fabric, both with right sides up and line up the center marks
Pin the gripper fabric in place and sew around the edge

Onto the Front

Creating the Pockets:

Take both pieces for your large pocket and line them up right sides together
Clip around edges and baste
Repeat these steps with the half pocket pieces

Creating the Pocket Binding:

Take one of your binding pieces and fold it in half hot dog way and press
Open it up, and fold each side in towards the middle fold line and press
Refold down the center with both sides still folded in towards the center and press

Attaching the Binding:

Slip the top edge of the pocket into the fold of your binding
Clip along the top pocket edge
Topstitch along the binding edge
Repeat with other pocket

Attaching the Pockets:

Lay your front main fabric piece out right side up
Lay your large pocket on top of the main piece lining up the bottom and side edges
Repeat with the half pocket
Pin along edges and baste pockets to the main front
Mark with an erasable fabric pen or chalk where you would like to divide your pockets into compartments. (I did one large in the middle and two smaller on either side, but you can do whatever configuration makes your heart happy)
Topstitch along marked lines to create your pocket compartments

Optional: You can add any buttons or embellishments you’d like at this point

Putting Your Organizer All Together

Lay our your back piece wrong side up with the gripper pad at the top
Set your front piece on top of the back piece with the right side up and pockets at the bottom
Clip in place and baste around the edges

Add That Binding!

Prepare your binding as I showed you in the earlier step for making the pocket binding (If you have multiple shorter pieces, sew the short ends together to create one long piece and then continue with the binding process)
Attaching your binding will be the same process and the pocket binding. Fold over the edge and clip in place down one side up to about 1″ away from your first corner
Topstitch along where you’ve clipped
When you get to a corner, you will push the binding that is hanging down into the corner and fold the side you were topstitching over it (see pictures below, it is hard to explain in writing)
Continue the same process around all edges and corners until you get back to where you started
Cut off any excess binding you have making sure you have about 1/2″ of overlap
Fold the binding end in 1/4″ so there are no raw edges when you’re done and finish off your topstitching

Woohoo! You did it!

Set that fabulous organizer on your table and put your sewing machine or serger on top of it. Load it up with all the essential sewing things and you’re ready!

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