Turning the Corner

By Janine Babich

Set your springtime table with charming napkins, place mats and a table topper.

PRETTY AS A PICTURE, this square table topper with doublemitered flange will bring the beauty of a springtime garden inside. Use it to dress up a round side table, give seasonal accent to a dining table or set the stage for a delightful picnic lunch.

When selecting fabric for your table topper, think "picture." Choose an interesting print (floral, animal, ethnic or geometric) as the feature fabric (one per side), define it with an accent strip, and frame it with flange fabric.

The featured table topper measures 50" square, but the construction technique also works on a smaller scale. It's made with 42"- to 44"- wide quilters' cotton. For a larger table topper, check your fabric store's home decorating section for 54"- wide fabrics. The benefit of using quilting fabric is that quilt stores normally stock entire lines of complementary fabrics, so you can select feature, accent and flange fabrics from the same family.

The topper's reversibility and wrap-around, double-mitered flange offer two different looks--just turn it over. For example: Use a large-scale print on one side and a complementary, small-scale print on the opposite side; then choose a flange color that crosses seasons (red accents both Christmas and patriotic-inspired prints); or, choose a monochromatic center panel to display your machine embroidery skills, and frame it with fabric that accents the embroidery designs.

Fabric Combinations

These are just a few ideas for different fabric combinations. To get an idea of what one side of the topper will look like, cover the print and accent strip on either side of the center panel. The center panel is the flange, which is visible on both sides of the topper.

From the May 2005 issue of Sew News magazine.