I ordered some of that cool chalkboard fabric quite awhile ago with the intention of making gifts for some small people that I know. My nieces already had one of these roll-up chalk mats and I think they got some good mileage out of it in entertaining themselves at restaurants and other places on the go, so I thought I’d try to reconstruct that as a gift for others.

What you’ll need:
15″ x 11″ piece of chalk fabric
15″ x 11″ piece of backing fabric
5″ x 4″ piece of pocket fabric
60″ x 2″ strip of edging fabric (in two or more pieces if needed)
2 pieces of ribbon, 12″ each

To start, turn under the long edge of the pocket piece and stitch a hem. Then fold it in half right sides together and sew the short edge closed, as shown below.

To stitch together the edging pieces, lay the ends out so the strips are perpendicular to each other with right sides together and stitch across at an angle. When the strips are turned right side up, they should now form one long strip with a diagonal seam.

Next, lay out the piece of backing fabric and the chalk fabric, wrong sides together. Now you’re going to sew binding around these pieces – ways to do this are illustrated here and here much better than I can do. As these demonstrate, there are various ways to do binding, but basically what I did is to sew the edging strips to the chalk mat side, 1/4 inch from the edge with right sides together. As you start sewing the binding, fold over the end towards the wrong side so the raw edge will be hidden. When you get to the corners, treat them as you would a quilt with a mitered corner (show in both of the tutorial links above).

When you get to the short side of the rectangle, slide the raw edge of the pocket piece between the binding and the chalk fabric and capture it as you stitch along the edge.

And this is what it looks like when you’re done with all four sides….

Lastly, turn the raw edge of the binding under 1/4 inch and then fold the binding in half, rolling it over to the the side with the backing fabric. Pin in place. On the short edge of the rectangle (opposite the side you have added the pocket) pin the ribbon pieces between the binding and the backing fabric. Topstitch along the edge through all the layers of fabric, around all four sides

Add some chalk and a small square of fabric to use as an eraser (which can both be stored in the pocket), and you’ve got your chalk mat!