American flag round table topper

For my mother-in-law's Mother's Day present, I used some flag fabric (that she had actually handed down to me, so I know she likes it!) to sew a little round table topper.  Since Barb loves to decorate seasonally, I figured this would be cute to set out in the weeks leading up to the 4th of July.

I kind of made it all up as I went along, so I didn't follow any tutorial in particular.  I started by cutting the fabric (which was essentially just long stripes) into four squares and sewing them together in alternating directions.  Then, I decided it would look even cooler as a circle and hacked off the excess.

Before I attached the top to the backing, I quilted the top using two perpendicular lines that intersected in the middle.  Then, instead of binding it, I sewed on some piping, put the backing and top right sides together, and sewed it into a sandwich -- leaving a gap for turning it right side out.  I had to *gasp!* hand sew the opening closed, but that spot is on the back and hopefully not very noticeable.  After I closed the gap, I quilted it with a couple of concentric circles.

The backing is pieced together because I didn't have enough of either the red canvas (left over from Barb's baskets) or the denim (left over from goodness knows what).