Blue Skies and Table Scraps

 

I've been enjoying the spring weather and the Carolina Blue skies.  I thought of several ideas for this month's Table Scrap, and eventually decided to go smaller. I've got several projects on my plate, so decided to make a bedside table topper instead of a long runner.

I've also been enjoying the antics of our squirrels. This one was strangely hesitant and spent a great deal of time contemplating jumping from the branch to my feeder and eventually wandered back to the trunk and climbed down to the ground. Very different from yesterday's squirrel who swung himself from the gutter and managed to land on my window feeder. Had to admire the moxie, even if it did mean a trip outside to shake a branch at him and shoo him away. Not sure if this was the same squirrel who failed the leap multiple times today.

Last year, during the mass renovations and redecorating, we had fun with paint and painted our bedroom a deep blue. So when I auditioned fabrics, I headed over to compare to the walls. These matched up nicely. I then cut my strips.

The topper is loosely based on Tula Pink's block 84 that I made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I think I'm going to make a similar one for the other bedside table, adding more variation to the widths of the strips.

Next step was to find a backing. I love this. It completely hides my quilting!

I played with several motifs on this - a continuous curve flower, lots of paisley, and meandering with leaves and flowers. The quilting actually came together pretty quickly once I sat down. This is a big change for me as I often agonize over getting started and worry it won't be perfect. I'm learning to embrace wonky.

I used a variegated thread that has some really dramatic color shifts from palest blue to darkest navy. It is actually a little jarring, and I learned that I'm less of a fan of variegated than I thought. It was a good lesson, on a small piece. Given that I have rather a collection of variegated thread, I will continue to use it but will likely do a few more practice motifs to see if it works with what I'm aiming for.

After trimming, I gave machine binding a whirl. Not perfect, but functional. I'm in the midst of hand stitching the binding on a large lap quilt so this was a good opportunity to practice a new skill.

So here we have it! My contribution to the April Table Scraps Challenge.