When we lived in Darkest Northern Maine I belonged to a women’s group that had potluck dinners from time to time. A frequent dish at these dinners was a meatloaf made with moose meat, no lie! Anyway, when we had a potluck, everyone brought her own place setting, including flatware, wrapped in a specially made carrier. In addition to being an opportunity to show off the fine china, it was a wonderful idea to save on waste! (My “fine china” is Corelle, but never mind that.) You can even carry a cloth napkin with you for further savings to the planet 🙂
Aroostook County, Maine, land of place setting carriers. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
I got to thinking about this when a colleague brought his lunch to the office with a cloth napkin the other day, and then later that same day one of my guilds had a potluck. Despite the fact that ALL of us CAN sew, nobody brought a place setting with her! It was all paper and plastic, filling the trash cans afterward. (The food was great, though!)
The truth is that, although I have made numerous place mats and table runners, I have never even made a place setting carrier for myself. So I searched the internet for patterns, and here are a few sources:
Quilted Place Setting Carrier, photo courtesy of Craftsy
This is a $5 pattern available on Craftsy. Click the label under the picture to go to the page where you can buy it.
Here is a link to a free pattern from the St. Croix Quilters. I couldn’t get a picture, but the pattern is just one page and permission is granted to share it. It even includes a pattern for a matching napkin 🙂
Here is a listing from Etsy for a place setting carrier that you can buy already made.
Place setting carrier available on Etsy, already made! Photo courtesy of Etsy.
Of course you could make one yourself, but sometimes there are too many projects in line already, and I thought this one was cute.
If you go searching for a pattern for a place setting carrier, most of what you’ll find are patterns for casserole carriers. Those are good, too, but not what I wanted! I’m pretty sure I can just develop my own place setting carrier by taking one of my dinner plates as a starting point for size and going from there. If I end up developing a pattern, I’ll let you know.
On another note, look at the wonderful pattern on this moth I found on a recent hike:
Unknown moth, Western N.C., 2018
Have a good week!
Zippy Quilts 
Such great ideas.
Thanks for visiting and commenting 🙂
These are so cool! Thanks for sharing. My list of Projects I Want to Do keeps growing!
You are so productive; I expect you’ll get to it all!
What a cool idea!! I love this😊
Thanks 🙂
Oooh! Your moth is beautiful! I’ve not been to potlucks where the guests take their own dinnerware, except for an (almost) annual block party in my neighborhood. We all just haul our things out into the street and then haul ’em back again. I think most people bring real dishes, not throwaways. (Reminder to start planning this year’s block party…)
And I’m thinking place setting carriers would make great Christmas gifts!
I love this idea!
I know what I’m making for our guild’s Christmas exchange!
Hear Hear to cloth napkins and no plastic cutlery and paper plates
And the carrier looks easy to make 😀
Love the idea…if there is no place to wash off plate/silverware, what did you do in Maine? Bring a plastic bag to put dirty items in before you put them back in your pretty quilted carrier? That may defeat the purpose a bit of not using paper/plastic plates/utensils?
Ha! Good point. I think everyone washed their dishes before carrying them home, but I would consider just putting the carrier in the next load of laundry, too. There is no perfect solution!
Yeah, in the laundry along with the cloth napkins…presto! Love this, Zippy!
Even more than this great tote idea, I’m intrigued with life in the northern most portion of Maine…
It was an experience. Great in some ways, difficult in others. The 150” of snow a year and isolation were the difficult parts. The hard working people with compassion for their neighbors were areal plus.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1022177/bgpage Your moth is a Haploa Calona.
Thanks for the pattern for the place setting carrier!
Thanks for identifying the moth!
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