I love fine linen in my house and when Susan Mars of Allaboutblanks brought out these cotton damask table cloths and napkins, I had to use them for my house. I wanted to create a table topper to go over the center of my table. I chose the designs from my collection "Bahar" to embellish. These designs are very versatile and can be used to create much larger designs. The table topper measured 45" square and had an entredeux border. I wanted to leave the areas outside the border area empty as I wanted the eye to focus on the center and the surrounding area. I chose very pale beige and off white as my two colors for the embroidery. The table topper is white.

For the center, I chose design #11 (the freebie) which I mirror imaged. I further mirror imaged the two to place beneath the first two and thus created the centerpiece.

Then, I proceeded to use design #3 which I placed around the center design thus creating a much larger design and giving the center a focal point. Please excuse my pictures, they do not show up well.
The center was easy to do as I folded my table topper in half and then half again. I printed my template from Embird of the design (the four motifs fit into the 5x7 hoop easily). The template I placed in the center of my table topper matching my creased centering lines to the centering lines on my template. Once that was stitched, I then printed the template for design #3 which I placed at an angle with the edges matching to the already stitched center design. I pinned this template to the table topper and hooping tear away stabilizer I pinned the table topper to the stabilizer. I made sure that the needle matched the center point of my template and then also the horizontal and vertical lines matched to the notches on the hoop. In this manner, I stitched the design four times around the center design.



This is what the finished table topper looked like. I took design #9 which I mirror imaged and thus created a new design. This new design I then stitched 16 times just before the entredeux border. I spaced each design so the corners were empty where I stitched design #7. Altogether, the table topper took me two days to complete and I hooped 25 times to create this masterpiece. The smaller version of this design is shown as a design idea on the bahar design page.

As you can see I have placed my templates for the border design in the corner. Once I had them placed on all four sides, then I could place them in between making sure that the measurements matched.

I pinned the template for my first stitchout to the table topper and took the topper to the machine. I hooped tear away stabilizer and after making sure that the needle matched the center marking with the template I pinned the topper to the stabilizer. Make sure the pins are out of the way of the design. Pin all edges making sure that the horizontal and vertical lines match up to the notches of the hoop and that the needle is matching to the center of the template.

I do like the finished product, don't you. The best advice here is to use your imagination to create using designs that you have already.


 

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