Currently In the Sewing Room

On Monday I thought I would dig into my stash of christmas fabrics -- these fabrics have been preying on my mind lately, mainly because they are OUTDATED, some from as long ago as the mid-nineties!  I thought I got rid of a bunch of christmas fabrics a year or two ago, but somehow another stack propogated in the back of a drawer in the furtherest dark corner of a closet up in the attic...

So, I was wanting to make something "quick 'n dirty" as they say and I thought that I would cut the scraps into 3 inch wide strips -- most of the scraps were parts of fat quarters so were about 18 to 20 inches long.  I have seen this idea used to some success before.  But I wasn't pleased at all with the long strips sewn together.  They were not at all interesting and somewhat drab.

So.  I took the strips in sections of 4 strips and cut them crosswise and trimmed them up into 9 1/2 inch squares.

and laid them out like a 'rail fence' pattern.

There.

That looked a bit more interesting to my eye and not too much more work.

Next I added a narrow border all around -- it too is a christmas print but so dark that it is almost depressing -- but it did help the mish mash of christmas fabrics stand out and yet contain them.

With a backing, but no batting in between I simply did a seam all around and turned it right side out, and sewed or perhaps quilted the two layers and called it a table cover.

Now, if you look  closely at the bottom of the photo you will see a little nose and under that nose are cat teeth trying to pull the cloth off of the table!  So since he, you know WALTER, right?  Since he insisted on getting a better look at the new christmas table cover I took the opportunity for some candid family photos...

I'm thinking I might have to make a frilly christmas collar for Walter -- He does make a fine looking Christmas Cat, does he not?