Table Quilts

When I visited my pal Julie in 2013, she had a quilt covering the table in her breakfast room. I thought it was a great idea to show off a quilt, and since I inherited my grandmother's antique Mahogany dining room table, I like to keep it protected. It's a Duncan Phyffe style banquet-sized drop leaf table. I usually keep the drop leaves up, and store the extra leaves. Normally the table is about 42" across and 62" long. With all three leaves in place the table is almost 99" long and seats twelve. Underneath the quilts, I have one of those plastic tablecloths to protect the table from spills.

I made a quilt specifically for Thanksgiving dinner, and liked it so much I decided to make a different quilt for every month. I also love decorative bowls, so each table cover has a unique bowl. 

The table quilts are in different sizes, so when the table is enlarged for guests, I have a quilt the appropriate size.

January: "Stacked Squares " made by Julie Sefton in 2016. I like the mostly white (in New Hampshire we have a lot of snow in January) and the little splashes of color.

February: "Peppermint Swirl" (2016-2017). I wanted a red and white quilt for February, after Valentine's Day. The backing of this quilt is ladies in red evening gowns.

March "Terrazzo" 2017, a Slashed Squares quilt. March is my least favorite month. It's grey, drab and depressing. So black and white is perfect!

April, "Hidden Potential" by Julie Sefton.  Julie used my leftover letters to make this quilt, to show my letter-making students that "mistakes" aren't always as bad as you think and can be used successfully elsewhere.

 May, "Easter Basket" 2017, a tumbler quilt. I made this tumbler quilt from fabrics in my stash. I wanted spring-y colors.

June, "Blue Deco" 2015, a scrap quilt. This quilt has almost 85 different blue fabrics. The blue represents the bright blue sky of summer.

July, "Tickled Pink" 2018. My birthday is in July, and I love pink, so I decided to make a pink quilt for the table in July.  This quilt is designed for when the table is fully open. There are a lot of summer birthdays in my family.

August, "Picnic Table" made in 2014. It's a free form rail fence quilt. The binding has bugs all over it, and the backing looks like an ant farm, and picnics are often interrupted by ants, so that's why the quilt is called "Picnic Table."

September "Sparkling Winkel" 2018, a Scrap Slab Triangle quilt. September is one of my favorite months. The weather is just right, the sky is blue and everything is still in bloom.

October, "Early Autumn", 2018, an original quilt of free pieced trees. (Not yet quilted) I wanted this quilt to represent early autumn in New Hampshire. The trees are still mostly green, but there are trees whose foliage changes early. This quilt was designed specifically for this table, with an arrangement on the tabletop, and the trees falling over the edge, but upright all around the table.

November, "Fall House Top" 2015. This is for my family's annual Thanksgiving dinner, and is the biggest table quilt because there are often at least ten diners, and is used with all the extra leaves.

December, "Christmas Random Plank", 2013-2014, a "Jelly Roll" quilt I made NOT using jelly rolls. I had a lot of Christmas fabric in my stash and decided to make this quilt to use it all up.


The quilts I use as table covers all have batting and are quilted and finished like normal quilts. I have one of those plastic flannel backed tablecloths underneath the quilt, to protect my mahogany table from spills. Sometimes I use coasters underneath glasses and I have been known to use placemats on top of the quilt if I am really worried about something spilling or staining.

When the quilts are not in use, they are stored in my closet, folded and hung up on coat hangers.