You know you’re old when you start making placemats.  Kidding!  These beach towel placemats are the perfect fun, frugal, and easy DIY.

Did you know that a standard-sized beach towel is the exact size of six placemats?  It is!  Beach towels are on clearance now, so let’s get sewing!

Confession #1: I’m incredibly bad at sewing.  If I can make these placemats, you can too.

Confession #2: I can be very impatient.  My mother-in-law came up with the idea for these placemats and used fabric to bind the edges, but I used bias tape so I wouldn’t have to cut perfectly straight pieces of fabric or do a lot of ironing.  

How to Make Placemats from a Beach Towel

Yields: Six placemats (about 13×20″ each)

Materials

• One standard-sized beach towel (I bought mine at Target.)
• 12 yards of extra wide double fold bias tape (If you’re not the best seamstress, it’s best to match your thread to your bias tape.  I didn’t have any navy thread on-hand.)

Directions

1. Iron your beach towel and bias tape.
2. Cut your beach towel into six, equal-sized pieces.  (If your beach towel has a thick hem around the edge, cut it off.)
3. Sew bias tape around each placemat.  (Tips: Make sure the narrow side of the bias tape is on the top.  Start sewing in the middle of a side, not the corner.  Sew around the corners following this tutorial from fluffyland.)

Easy, right?!  Even novice sewers can make these placemats in about an hour.  

I love how cute and soft these placemats turned out.  They’re not perfect, but I don’t care.  I’m going to stock up on extra beach towels for future housewarming gifts.

Thoughts or questions?  I’d love to hear from you in a comment below!