Table cover w/ pockets

I've been wanting something on the night stand next to the bed so when I put my glasses down or set down my phone, neither will get scratched, or scratch the night stand.  Because it's a dark wood - black walnut, it also showed dust much more quickly than I like to dust.

I'd been making mug rugs, with new patterns and now was ready to try the Marci Baker method of doing the tumbling block.....well this was all starting to sound like "Opportunity knocking" don't you think?

Here's the finished product - I'm calling it my table rug.  It has 2 pockets on the bed side so I can tuck in the cord to my phone charger and the control to the bed in the rear pocket, and my glasses in the front pocket.  Even if I put my glasses on the night stand and they flip to the lens side, they're protected.

Here's a picture of the whole piece.  It's actually upside down, the pocket is at the top.  See the tumbling blocks pattern?  This Marci Baker method was much quicker than the traditional method that I made the black and white mug mat with.

Here's a close-up of the pocket.  You could make these any size you wanted.  I let the left-over stripset that I didn't use determine the size, and I stitched it down to make 2 separate pockets.   The pockets could be on both sides, and could be sized to hold a variety of things....reading material, heating pad control, remote, mp3 player, rosaries.....or just anything you want!!!

I also had recently purchased some great striped fabric that I wanted to make into biased binding.  The colors would work here.  I have also been having a bit of trouble with my mitered corners on my binding forming peaks... I experimented a little and pulled the 2nd fold of each miter a little short of the corner.....whalla .... no peaks!!  It may have been the fact that it was bias binding - it may have been the 'short' corner or maybe just a combination of both, but I was very happy with the results.  It looks pretty darn square to me!!  Success!

Hubby liked the idea - now he wants one - and you know what - I have one more method of the tumbling blocks I want to try - so stay tuned.