A Sweet Little Kitchen Upgrade

 

This little project was one I’ve been wanting to do for ages.  For quite some time I’ve wanted to make washable shelf liners for the shelves of my dish cupboards.  I’ve long wanted to have a sweet place to arrange my curated collection of Corelle dish ware and vintage Pyrex and Corning Ware pieces.  I don’t care for store bought shelf lining material or contact paper as it gets stick and tacky on the surface as it ages and it is really hard to make it look nice without wrinkles and bubbles.  I also wanted custom made liners that actually fit the shelves and are ones I can just simply toss into the washing machine whenever they need a good clean.

 

About three years ago I found this darling flannel fabric in a nice kitchy theme that was perfect for this project.  I knew I had plenty of coordinating cotton calico fabric for the back, which sadly you don’t really see so I just used what I already had on hand.  After measuring my shelves I bought a yard and a half of the flannel when it was on sale for 50% OFF so this project was not expensive at all.  Unfortunately, it had been sitting waiting for me ever since.

 

I put this task on my list of projects to complete this year and once I got my guest room back in order I was itching to get in there and get busy.  I selected a backing fabric from my stash and cut rectangle pieced of both fabrics based on the measurements I took of each of the shelves adding a half inch to the width and length for the 1/4” seam allowance.  I placed each piece right sides together and pressed with a hot iron before pinning them together.  I stitched them up leaving an opening, trimmed the corners, turned them right side out and pressed them nicely before I topped stitched along the edges of each one using a simply straight stitch.  No hand sewing required.

 

Initially I made four liners as I had originally planned but then I realized I had plenty of fabric left to make two more for the very top shelves of each cupboard.  Rather than saying I’d get those done later I just headed right back upstairs and got those two additional liners cut, stitched, pressed and ready to go.  Mainly because we all know how “later” works and after all this time I wasn’t going to take a chance for this project to get stalled any further.  I’d waited long enough.

 

Now that the cupboards are all nice and clean, the dishes all got washed and the shelves are all neatly lined I am absolutely thrilled.  It makes me so very happy every time I open the cupboard to get a glass our or pull dishes out for supper.  It was so much fun to make these and it is even more fun to put them to use.  I love these!