Christmas tabletopper tutorial

Here is a quick tutorial on how I made this very simple tabletopper.

I used 2 1/2" strips of all different reds and greens for the center. I sewed a red strip to a green strip and cut in 2 1/2" segments and then sewed them together for a 16 patch of all different fabrics.

Next for the first borders I used gold fabric with stars and swirls and cut 8 1/2" x 2 and 12" x 2 and sewed to the 16 patch. For the last borders I started with a red strip and sewed to the right side. I then sewed a strip of green to the bottom and next red and last green at the top. For the machine quilting I did a decorative stitch down the centers of the 16 patch center and then straight lines about 1/8" from the seam. I wrote words in each of the borders.

Here is where I did something new....I did the binding by machine! I used red fabric with stars and swirls. First I listened to some tutorials on how to do machine binding and then sewed the binding to the back instead of the front. Pat Sloan has a good video on how to do this.

Then I folded the binding over and sewed a buttonhole stitch with my machine to finish. It was fun and I will be doing this method again. Smiles and hugs....Caryl