Christmas & Chinese New Year Placemat

I've lot's of plan for Christmas and making Christmas decoration is one of my to-do list.  

First up on the list is a Christmas Placemat in the festive Red and Green of course! My hubby then gave me the idea to make a dual purpose placemat. Christmas placemat on one side and the reverse side for Chinese New Year! The Chinese New Year usually falls between January and February. Quite close to Christmas. It's a good idea to recycle the placemat else it will only be used once a year.

Here's what I made this year.

Front facing for Christmas

Back facing for Chinese New Year

I found the Christmasy Red home deco fabric with Reindeer and Christmas tree print from Spotlight. It match nicely with the Green fabric that I already had on hand.   

And guess what? Spotlight carries a very Mandarin style home deco fabric with dolls and floral prints! And the width is just nice to make 3 placemat since I got 2 dolls print on each mat! I bought about 1.25 meter as it will give me exactly 6 placemats.  The fabric has interesting patterns at the bottom and top. I snip off the middle strap for plan of another project, maybe a table runner ...

For the Christmas side, I roughly measure an existing placemat. The green portion is about 1/4 and red portion 3/4.  Pin the 2 panels right side together along one short side, align side seams. Sew with 0.25" seam allowance and press seams open.  I also top stitch for a neat finish.

Then, place the Christmas-side mat onto the Chinese New Year-side mat with Right Side Facing, align seams and pin all around. Sew with 0.25" seams allowance and leave 3" gap opening at one of the side.

Turn Right Side out through the gap and press. Top stitch all around and stitch the gap close.  

I made 6! So easy and immediately light up the Christmasy mood don't you think?