Strawberries and a TableTopper

I was busy all day today.  The Pacific Northwest is the berry capital of the US, and June brings the first berries ripe and ready to pick.  Yes, strawberries are coming on strong around here, and there are several "U-Pick" farms every where.  I went to one about 5 miles from my house and spent three hours picking 26 (half I picked for a neighbor) pounds of strawberries this morning.  Then I came home and put about 1/4 of them in the dehydrator, and the rest in the freezer.  Below shows the dried strawberries, as it only took about 8 hours to dry.  I have never dried strawberries before, so I only did a small batch.  But, these turned out so good tasting, and pretty that I might have to go back to the farm and pick some more early next week.

After I got all of the strawberries in the freezer and in the dehydrator, I sat down to get some sewing done.  Last fall, I made a hexagon table topper that I posted about here, and thought I would make another one for a change for my round dining room table.  This is such an easy pattern, and I had left over 1 1/2" strips from a honey bun I used in one of my Farmer's Wife  quilts I did last year.  

During the course of making the Farmer's Wife quilt out of Moda's Breath of Avaigon, I ended up getting a yard of a border print, which is a SKU in fabric line.  I really didn't need it to complete the blocks, but I knew I would have left over fabric from the blocks and figured I would be able to make something with this border bring and the scraps.

So, I fussy cut the border print for both the center of the front of the table mat and for the backing.  This way, it can be used on either side.  

This is the back of the table mat, showing a full view of the border print.

This is the front of the table matt, showing the border print in the center, and strips from the leftover HoneyBun roll sewn all around.

I have it layered and ready for quilting, which I plan on doing tomorrow afternoon.  And, I will have to pick out a binding from some of the other scraps I have in my leftover bin.  I am leaning towards a dark blue.

Warmest...