The Stipple Monster Pt 1

Just before Christmas I used my FaceBook status to ask what gift you were most excited to give. I had 3 that were at the top of my list. One was an album for my brother. The other two were for my mom and my mother-in-law.

I got to spend a wonderful weekend with my friend, April, in November. She taught me how to machine quilt while I was there.

My mom's table topper and placemats
I cut 1 5" charm pack (42 5" squares) in half and the stitched them together in a sort of stair stepped fashion.

This first photo is a closeup of the loopy meandering stitch I used for quilting.

Here's the back.

And most of the front. I have no idea why I couldn't get the left side when there's so much extra space on the right....

I didn't quilt the  placemats - I just stitched the half squares (aka rectangles) into a strip, and used duck cloth to complete the top. I used fleece instead of batting (figured it might wash better).

My Mother-In-Law's Table Topper

You don't have to be associated with the Hill family very long before you figure out that pizza is a fairly common component of family get-togethers. My in-laws have a large (probably 6 ft) round table with a 3 ft lazy susan in the middle. After Jon saw what I'd made for my mom, he complimented my work by telling me that I should make something like it for his mom. Well - my noggin went to work, and I came up with the perfect table topper...

Griff and I found two "cheese" fabrics, a pepperoni, an olive or sausage, and a striped one that's supposed to be green peppers. I pieced split rail or basket weave blocks using two strips of cheese and one strip of toppings. Then I cut that into a circle. I thought I could just sew a sauce binding around the edge, but the circle was too small, so that first sauce strip was unpicked, lengthened, gathered (wish I'd discovered my ruffler foot then...), and stitched to the pieced quilt. Next I flipped the sauce strip out and top stitched to keep it in place.

Stacked the quilt (with a brown crust), meander loop stitched it, and bound it with golden rod blanket binding.

Tada!

My favorite part of this was how we gave it to her. We picked up a large, empty, pizza box from a local pizzeria, folded the table topper up like a slice of pizza (couldn't locate a box large enough for a 30" pie), and gave her the box. She didn't quite know what to think about that, but once it was open I think she loved it!