A quilted table topper is the hardest-working decoration in a holiday home. It sits under the centerpiece at dinner, catches the drips under a cookie plate, brightens a coffee table, and — best of all — it sews up in a single afternoon from one charm pack. Starting in October means yours is washed, pressed, and ready long before the first guest rings the bell, and a second one makes a thoughtful hostess gift for the season ahead.
What You'll Make
One square quilted table topper, about 32 inches across, built from 36 charm squares in a simple six-by-six grid with a two-color border. The Christmas prints in the charm pack do all the design work — you just arrange, sew, and quilt. It lies flat under a centerpiece, washes well, and folds away in January in almost no space. Prefer a fall version? Swap in harvest prints and it carries your table straight through Thanksgiving.
Materials
Eight of the ten items below (80%) come straight from Linda's — links included so you can grab exactly what we used.
- A Very Sweet Christmas Charm Pack Precuts — you will use 36 squares for the center grid
- 082 Maraschino Cherry Moda Grunge - Fat Quarter — order 2: one for border strips, one for binding
- 232 Kelly Green Moda Grunge - Fat Quarter — for alternating border strips
- Hobbs Heirloom Bleached 80/20 Batting Package — cut one 36-inch square; the rest keeps for placemats and mug rugs
- 900 Sinai King Tut Cotton Thread — a warm neutral for piecing, quilting, and binding
- Olfa Deluxe 45mm Rotary Cutter — for border strips, batting, and trimming
- Quilting Corsage Pins — to baste the layers before quilting
- Riley Blake Designs Quilty Clips — to hold the binding in place while you stitch
- Backing fabric, about 1 yard of quilting cotton — from your stash, most craft stores, or your local quilt shop
- A self-healing cutting mat and an acrylic ruler — available at most craft stores if you don't already own them
Steps
- Lay out your grid. Choose 36 charm squares and arrange them in six rows of six on a table or design wall. Spread the busiest prints apart, alternate light and dark squares, and step back to check the balance before you sew anything.
- Sew the rows. Join each row's six squares with a ¼-inch seam, pressing seams in one direction. Then sew the rows together, pressing those seams the opposite way so the intersections nest neatly. Your center should measure about 27 inches square.
- Add the border. Cut 3-inch-wide strips from the red and green fat quarters. Sew red strips to the top and bottom of the center and green strips to the sides — or mix them half and half — pressing away from the center after each addition. Trim the border even.
- Layer the sandwich. Cut a 36-inch square of backing and lay it right side down. Smooth the 36-inch batting square on top, then center the finished top right side up. Pin through all three layers every few inches, working from the center out.
- Quilt it simply. Stitch in the ditch along the grid and border seams, or sew gentle diagonal lines across the squares. Start in the center and work outward; a walking foot helps if you have one. Trim the square so all three layers are even.
- Make and attach the binding. Cut 2½-inch strips from the second red fat quarter, join them into one long strip, and fold it in half lengthwise. Sew it to the front edge of the topper, mitering the corners, then fold it to the back.
- Finish by hand or machine. Clip the folded binding in place with the quilty clips and stitch it down on the back, by hand for an invisible finish or by machine close to the fold. Give the whole topper a final press.
Tips
Charm squares are precut, so resist the urge to trim them — small differences disappear once the rows are pressed and quilted. If a seam intersection feels bulky, press it open instead of to one side. Making this as a gift? Roll the finished topper around a bottle of something festive, tie it with ribbon, and you have a hostess present that took one afternoon. And because the whole project is quilting cotton and batting, a cool wash and a warm press keep it looking fresh season after season.
Where to Get Everything
Start at Linda's for the fabrics and notions: the A Very Sweet Christmas charm pack, the Maraschino Cherry fat quarter and Kelly Green fat quarter for the border and binding, the Hobbs Heirloom batting package, King Tut cotton thread, the Olfa rotary cutter, corsage pins, and Riley Blake quilty clips. That's 80% of the list from Linda's. For the rest, backing fabric is a perfect use for a yard already in your stash, and a cutting mat and ruler are easy finds at most craft stores or your local quilt shop. Sew yours this week and your holiday table is set — literally.
