Kwanzaa is a celebration of family, community and culture that combines traditions from many African cultures. It marks the harvest and emphasizes seven principles of strength: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. The 'mkeka' is a place mat, on which the mazao, bowls of fruits and vegetables, are placed. It is traditionally made of straw or cloth and represents culture and history. It is the symbolic foundation on which the holiday stands. Our Kwanzaa table mat is based on this tradition.

Appliqué is one of the most versatile techniques in sewing. It allows a simple piece of fabric to become a canvas, on which you can create collages of textures, colors, and other fabrics. Machine embroidery takes this traditional art form to new, and amazingly easy, heights. Specially designed stitch files do most of the work for you. You just 'float' a piece of fabric, trim, then watch as your embroidery machine precisely creates an ingenious blend of beautiful embroidery and appliqué.

Welcome your guests to their seats with a stylish place card and a little surprise. These favor bags are so easy and quick to make; it took only one hour to make and finish enough for six place settings. This is a great fabric scrap project. One bag uses just a 6" x 13" piece of fabric. Use up leftovers from our Thanksgiving Arts & Crafts style tablecloth and napkin tutorials or try contrasting fabric.

Square fabric napkins are super simple, especially when you follow our easy directions for how to make a perfect double-turn, narrow hem with clean corners. This holiday, pass on the paper, and make your own beautiful cloth napkins.

Our Arts & Crafts inspired holiday tablecloth features a unique panel design, which incorporates the beauty of a placemat into the tablecloth itself. Three highlight strips provide the perfect backdrop for your best china and flatware. We selected two gorgeous fabrics from Joel Dewberry's Deer Valley collection. The striking patterns and interlocking architectural motifs create an elegant Thanksgiving theme.

Do you have a host of Halloween goblins headed your way? Roll out this fast and easy table runner and spread out all your goodies in style. The simple patchwork design is made up of 40 squares, which makes a colorful grid of stripes, dots, bats and spiders. It's a little bit spooky and a little bit kooky. HA! Now you have the Addams Family theme stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

I love table runners. You can use them alone or layered over a table cloth. They create a beautiful focal point for your table or buffet, like a little fabric runway, perhaps giving me an excuse to invite Tim Gunn to my house. But if I invited him, I'd probably have to also invite Heidi Klum, and then it would just be too crowded. So instead, I'll make this beautiful Christmas Morning Table Runner and invite my friends and family.

How many of you remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer is pitching the coffee table book about coffee tables? The center point of most living rooms is indeed the coffee table. So it certainly deserves its own decorator touch for holiday celebrations. This table topper project features a nine-patch center section that shows off a beautiful selection of our Heather Bailey Pop Garden & Bijoux fabrics.

Does someone wake you up at o'dark-thirty on Christmas morning?! Then you need a zesty zap of yellow to get you going. This lovely, lemony tablecloth is the perfect foundation for a holiday breakfast feast of waffles, fruit, juice and coffee. The bright yellow is set off with creamy drop panels and it's all tied together with deep crimson bands and bows.

What a fun alternative to place cards. At the end of the meal, everyone can detach their beads and use them as bookmarks, bracelets or hang them from a keychain. The napkin ties themselves are quick to make and accent the red band in our Lemon-Zest Tablecloth beautifully.

Adding a simple fabric border kicks this napkin up a notch. Napkins are a great beginning project and a great way to practice hemming. We made all our napkins match for our Citrus Holiday table, but it would also be snazzy to do a different, coordinating trim on each person's napkin. Not only would it be a great way to use up fabric scraps, you could also keep track of which napkin belongs to which guest.

A "Fussy Cut" is not pitching a fit in the barber chair when one side of your bangs is longer than the other. Although that is perfectly justified behavior. To fussy cut in sewing is to select and cut out a specific motif from a printed fabric or center your pattern piece directly over a design within your fabric that you want to feature. This is what we did to perfectly center the beautiful pineapple design on each of our placemats.

You've heard the joke: "what is an occasional table the rest of the time?" Well, while you're laughing, that poor table is sitting there naked. It's time to make those small occasional tables attractive and important members of your patio party. It's one of the simplest sewing projects you can do.

Did you know the paper napkin made its debut in 1887? While that's quite historical, we still prefer the cloth napkin. And, making your own festive fabric napkins for a party – or just for everyday - is a fun and easy way to spruce up a place setting.

Rectangular placemats fit great on a square or rectangular table. But a lot of outdoor furniture sets feature round tables. This is one of those "square peg in a round hole" problems. Our project will help you make trapezoidal placemats, which fit nicely together when placed around a circular table. The sewing is the same as a rectangular placemat, but the shape gives a beautiful effect for each place setting. Your guests will be impressed – especially your seventh grade math teacher.

The book of Classic Picnic Decorating says one must always default to the red and white checked tablecloth. We say, "to heck with that." Besides, there's no such book! Instead, we invite you to create your own vibrant and stylish table covering. Our instructions will help you make a banded tablecloth that uses three different printed fabrics. The unique ties at the corners look great and foil the wind by helping secure the table cloth to the table.

These super easy napkin rings require no sewing and hardly any time commitment. And, I know you've just  been waitin' to figure out what to do with all those paper towel and TP rolls besides bonking your friends in the head with them.

Top-stitching a simple line of ribbon around a ready-made napkin adds a touch of elegance, and can personalize any napkin to the color scheme of your table decor. Once you've mastered this easy technique, you can apply it to any purchased linen. Try a tablecloth, placemat or even hand towel next time. Because there will be a next time.

This project started with a plain beige table runner and place mat set from Target. A little boring all on their own, they made the perfect background for my own custom table linens, which I embellished with fabric appliqués and sparkly trim.