Circle Time

A few weeks ago I was at my LQS and was talking to a woman about table runners.  She mentioned that she had a small, circular table and was always looking for table toppers that would fit.  Once she mentioned it I realized that I don’t see many around blog land.  I loved the idea of making a circle shaped table topper using the same vases and leaves from my rectangular runner idea. 

I played with different sizes of circles and different sizes of vases and ended up with this:

[pattern is available here and here]

It measures about 27” in diameter.  Even though it was intended for a round table, I think it still looks great on a rectangular one. 

For this red version I used several different applique stitching techniques, but they are all still done on a machine.  I first appliqued the vases, using one of the “blanket stitch” settings.  I added the detail lines to the pot using just a regular straight stitch, and just eyeballing where the lines should go. 

For the leaves I used a straight stitch, carefully stitching close to the edge of each leaf.  Then I went back and added the detail stitch down the center of each leaf.  The stems were created by first drawing in the stem with a light pencil line, then going over that with a tight zigzag stitch. 




When it came time to do the binding I was a little concerned about how it would turn out.  First of all, it requires bias binding.  Ok, no problem.  But I wanted to be able to do the binding completely on the machine – that’s where I was concerned. 

The bias binding sewed to the front of the topper just fine.  I folded it around to the back, used a generous amount of binding clips and began sewing.  It went beautifully!  As long as I took my time and didn’t try to rush too much (it’s hard to be patient when a project is SO close to completion!) then it went smoothly. 



It is interesting how the change in just the stitches can alter the feel of the finished topper.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you can take a look at a more artistic feel to the same project here.  Tomorrow I’ll show you the small pink version of this pattern which uses a different set of stitches. 

The Sprouts pattern is still on sale for 20% but just for a few more days!  Add the pattern to your cart here and then use the code “springsprouts” at checkout to receive the discount.  Offer good until Feb 1, 2013.