I had a charm pack from the store that I was going to make a table topper from, but first I pulled a lot of the squares and made coasters as a sample. Now I was stuck. What would I do with the rest of them.
I decided to go with the table topper idea but to make it round and rectangle. Huh?, you say. Well the squares would be cut in half -- so I would have more -- they would now be 2 1/2" x 5". I used whatever was left. I didn't set any aside and as long as two pieces of the same fabric didn't touch each other I was okay with it. I also offset the placement so I didn't have to worry about seams matching.
I tested out my pattern when everything was sewn together and discovered I needed just a wee bit more on the bottom.
I added a few pieces.
The next time I will actually know what I'm doing and make it right the first time.
That circle. That was going to be my biggest problem. I asked the farmer if he could draw me one, but he was taking too long.
I took matters into my own hands. I found my biggest pot lid. (It is from my wok) and drew a circle using it as a template. I measured across and found out I had 14 1/2".
I wanted 20".
Not being the mathematician that I think I am, I added 1 1/2" all the way around, using my ruler
That gave me 17 1/2".........so back to the drawing board. This time I actually did the math and came up with a 20 1/2" circle.
I sandwiched it with a solid white and did some machine quilting on it.
Then I added a "turquoisie" coloured solid for the binding. Don't forget, when working with curves the binding should be cut on the bias.
No stretching when sewing it on. Just let it do it's own thing.
The next time I make this and there will be a next time, I will actually do 6 rectangles across on each row and make 12 rows. That is the grand total of 72 rectangles. (I didn't use the calculator) I will still off set them as I like the way this looks.
Our Advent Calendar is up.
I start to take the decorations off today.
The year of 1988 was taken up with cross stitching this in time for December 1st
and I did it.
I had never done anything like this before and was pretty nervous it would all turn out
but it did