“Daffodil” Table Topper

My grandmother, who loved spring flowers, often recited a nursery rhyme about daffodils:

“Daffy-down-dilly has come to town in a yellow petticoat and a pretty green gown.”

Do you remember that one? Click here to see some sweet vintage pictures of Daffy-down-dilly as they appeared in nursery rhyme books.

The arrival of spring and the blooming of daffodils inspired me to make a cheery yellow and white table topper from “Pepper & Flax” fabrics designed by Corey Yoder for Moda. If you would like to make one, too, you’ll need 1/8 yd. each of two different shades of yellow, 1/4 yd. of white fabric, and 3 green strips (2 1/4″ x 40″) for binding.

• From each of the two yellow fabrics, cut nine 4 1/4″ squares; from the white fabric, cut eighteen 4 1/4″ squares. Granted, 4 1/4″ is an unusual size, but it’s calculated for efficient fabric use in making a table topper size quilt.
• Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each white square.
• Pair the white squares, right sides together, with yellow squares. Sew 1/4″ away from both sides of the drawn line on each pair.
• Cut apart on the drawn lines. Each pair of squares yields two half square triangles (HSTs).
• Select the HSTs made with the darker yellow fabric and press the seams toward the yellow triangles.
• Then select the HSTs made with the lighter yellow fabric and press the seams toward the white triangles.
• I did not “square up” or trim my HSTs since they were all the same size (3 7/8″), but you could do so.
• Lay out the HSTs as per the photo. Sew HSTs together to make six rows. Press seams open.
• Pin the rows together. By using sharp, thin pins and leaving them in place as I sewed, the seams remained aligned. Please do not tell the quilt police that I sewed over pins. Sew and press seams open. The quilt is 20 3/4″ square.
• Quilt the project:  I quilted 1/4″ away from both sides of all seam lines.
• Bind with green fabric. I cut the binding strips 2 1/4″ wide, joined them with diagonal seams, pressed the strip in half width-wise, and sewed the binding to the quilt with a 1/4″ presser foot.

Of course, once I made the table topper, I began thinking “what if?” What if I substituted two shades of green in the rows of three triangles near the corners? With Electric Quilt software, it’s easy to draw and color my design imaginings. What a beautiful daffodil quilt this would be!

If you made a table topper like this from HSTs, would you use yellow or some other color combination?