Patio Chillin' Table Topper

This little DrEAMi! happened because I saved all the corner cut-offs from making individual flying geese from Lift Up, (how interesting, posted July 12, 2018, almost a year ago to the day), knowing they'd grow up into something useable, and then it was Wendy who gave me the 'something useable', idea a really cool table centrepiece for her patio table that you can see here at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life. However, it did get stalled because of really big deadlines. So I put it onto my Q2FAL list because I wanted to use it this summer! I'm so glad I did two DrEAMi sessions to get it done!

I first sewed the HSTs as leader/enders during the construction of my Meadow Mystery quilt top (which remains, ahem, unquilted). Then I saw Wendy's centrepiece and I thought, 'Aha! I can make one for our table!' From that thought on, it happened in true DrEAMi fashion, where I dropped what I should have been sewing and began putting this together, all pedal to the metal, blinders on to the rest of my sewing life as one does with a true Drop Everything And Make it!

And it stalled out because?
Way important deadlines for Island Batik.

Sometime later last Fall, I added the soft turquoise corners border, and then yet another border, the navy purple and lime. It sat again.

Part of the reason was the conundrum to rip the navy/purple/lime border all or partially off, add in final HSTs to make that final dark diamond... or not? Stop there? It stopped there, ha.

On Friday, I put the final border on, which is deep eggplant and the cloud-looking navy, and called it done. These are all from last year's Island Batik fabrics, and I was using the 5" Stash Builder strips, working with what I had left. Gosh I see now I was giving myself a challenge! I set it aside, because I was trying to behave (like that happens lol) and I went back to my July Island Batik challenge project, but this quilt bugged me at how very close it was to being another ✅ on my FAL list...

So, with hours to spare, last night I told myself, 'Self? Get your butt in gear, lose a half hour of sleep tonight and load it on Avril and quilt it. Lose a couple hours tomorrow morning when you're supposed to be prepping for your sewing afternoon with friends, and finish this up before the deadline!'

I listened to myself, and I finished quilting it with a simple, soothing, great-before-bedtime meander using navy 50 wt Aurifil. Blue actually is a calming colour, a great aid for sleep so I have heard. 💤

I trimmed it up after I taught yoga this morning.

Fabulous texture already, right? It's that I love this so much Hobbs Thermore again! And it's the last of it, waaahhh, and it Franken-batted too.

Someone else loves it, already sat her butt on it.

Then I decided to cut it up. Just a bit. You read that right. I needed it to go around the patio umbrella pole. Wendy did it on hers too. I still had a bit of an 'I'm really going to do this?' moment...

I used a candle to trace around for the centre hole which is about 3.5" in diameter. For the binding, I turned to those 5" strips again, knowing I'd need to do some on bias binding to work it around that circle. I used ℼr2 to figure out how much length I needed there, and cut two strips on the bias, pieced them together, and then more strips of two different batiks in regular binding to fit around the perimeter of the quilt. I forgot to take photos of this part. Here it is on the table though:

I stitched it to the back of the quilt, and then folded it to the front and top-stitched it down with a pretty variegated Aurifil thread.

I did remember to sew on my satin label, which is the first of my corrected labels from Ikaprint.

Note the tiny spool of thread and needle!

Instead of sending me the new designs, they mistakenly reprinted my original design and sent me 100 of those. However, they've made it right by sending me the correct ones.

Here is the back, which is a batik, a vintage one (ahem) and I have no clue what company it is but it is perfect.

I was a half hour late to my sewing get-together getting this done and photographed. But I stayed a bit later because I needed to make up that time right?😉 I got two more placemats done for Brianne (yup, she decided she really needs six... I love it), and started some for Dayna, AND made my Tiny Tuesday block, so it was a productive as well as lovely conversation sew session. I am going to be a regular to this little group who meets at a local library once a month.

I love it!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: original design
Size: 26" square
Fabric: Island Batik
Backing: unknown batik
Batting: Hobbs Thermore

Quilted: on Avril, 10 609 stitches
Threads: pieced on my Bernina; quilted with Aurifil 2745 50 wt; binding stitched down with Aurifil 4662 variegated 50 wt

I haven't mentioned bluprint in a while... I let my year membership lapse as I just did not get the value out of it; I'd rather watch Netflix than classes, which seems weird, but any screen time I have other than the blog is mainly for Netflix. I do still think highly of their classes, and prefer to just own those I feel are worthy, so stay tuned for some reviews in the future. I also do think a lot of their kits, fabrics, notions and sales 😍so I'll let you know of a current sale: 60% off two bluprint exclusive items. This is the time to get some screaming good deals. If you are a member, for the month of July you get 25% fabric, yarn, kits, tools and supplies, no limit!!

Linking up
Dizzy Quilts