Running

I'm still waaaaaaay too scared to ever attempt a full-size quilt, but I am having fun testing my piecing skills on table runners.  No matter how hard I try (and how much spray starch I use), I still have issues with things going wonky.  I can't even imagine how crazy it would get with these tiny mistakes compounding themselves over something the size of a quilt.  It boggles my mind how Corey's Granny was able to make such a perfect queen-sized quilt for us.  Anyway, here are two of my latest finished table runner attempts.

This one is to replace the Valentine's Day one on my kitchen island.  I am not always known for getting holiday decorations put away immediately after a holiday passes, but I'm definitely known for bitching about things like the Christmas lights that are still up (at the very end of February!!!) at the entrances to our neighborhood and at various homes around town.  Good lord, people.  I know it's cold outside and you don't necessarily have to take the lights down, but do you have to still keep turning them on (or forgetting to turn off the timers) every night?  This table runner is sort of St. Patrick's Day-ish, but it could work year-round.

I wanted to try a fun technique I read about at Actually Amy for piecing with HSTs (half-square triangles) where you sew two squares with right sides together (all the way around) and then slice and dice on the diagonals.  Open them up and voila, you have four squares made of HSTs!

The fabric was from a pack of fat eighths that I had bought on a whim months ago.  The binding is just packaged quilt binding.  I probably should have added sashing around the edges so the binding wouldn't cut off the points of the diamonds, but I'm still learning!

To quilt it, I spray basted some felt to the back (and added some dark green Kona cotton as the backing) and then sewed on either side of each of the seams.  Holy cow, that took a ton of thread.  I had to run back to the store for more to finish.

The next one was made from a bit of a bundle of fat quarters I had also bought on a whim.  I used the stack & slash method from Samelia's Mum (the same one I had used for Ivette's table runner), but put two rows of them on top of each other to make it fatter.  Charlotte declared this one to be an Easter table runner, so maybe it will go on the kitchen island once St. Patrick's Day has passed.

The batting is felt and the backing is some left over navy bottom-weight fabric left over form Peter's Halloween pirate vest.  My machine was NOT pleased for some reason with this choice, and kept skipping stitches while I was quilting it (even after I changed needles, rethreaded the top and the bobbin threads, changed tension, changed settings, etc.).  Lesson learned -- use a lighter-weight fabric for the backing.  It probably would also help if I got a walking foot.  I quilted using the same "sew on either side of the seams" technique, but I only sewed around the blocks.  I got tired of picking out the quilting with the skipped stitches and decided this was plenty of quilting for a simple table runner.

Fall Stack & Slash Table Runner for Ivette

My friend, Ivette, is a super talented photographer and has two terrific kids.  Her son, Ben, and my son, Peter, are such good buddies that they can play happily for hours and hours together and all we have to do is throw a snack or two at them every once in a while -- no toy refereeing needed.  That is pretty amazing for a three-year-old and a four-year-old!  Anyway, after she took some beautiful fall photos of our family, I decided to make her a pretty fall table runner to say thank you (and practice my nascent quilting skills as well).

I used a very simple Stack & Slash Table Runner tutorial from Samelia's Mum.  It's great for someone like me who hasn't quite got the hang of intricate (or, to be honest, even basic) piecework but who wants practice with the basic steps of quilting beyond the piecework.  I used some of the gorgeous fabrics that my friend, Amanda, bought for me, and came up with this:

You really can't see it in these cell phone pictures (I forgot to take glamor shots with my good camera, so I asked Ivette to send me some phone shots of it on her table), but I quilted it by tracing a bunch of different-sized overlapping circles all over it.  That was actually a pain in the butt to do because I had a ton of thread ends to tie off and work in on the backside.  Then, I had to wash the runner because I don't have one of those cool disappearing ink markers on hand anymore and I needed to get the pencil marks off.  That caused the fabric to bubble up a bit, which made me realize I needed to make my quilting lines a little closer together in the future to minimize that.

Ivette has a really neat long, rustic farmhouse style table in her kitchen, and it turned out that the runner fit perfectly on it under her cool candle holder.  The back of the runner is the same black and white damask print as the binding.

I would love to make this runner again for my table!  I think I would start out with larger blocks (the pattern is based off of squares from a 10" layer cake, so that's why it turned out a tad skinny.  It looks great on Ivette's long table, though.  I wish I could give Ivette something half as beautiful as what she gave me.  I mean, have you ever seen a better picture of Petey?  Thank you, Ivette!

I AM NOT A QUILTER! (with a wonky table runner as proof)

Seriously, why do I keep fooling myself into thinking that I can quilt?  I just don't have a steady-enough hand or something.  I think I also mess up by using fabrics of different weights together, even though a little warning light goes off in my brain every time I do it.  Still, I decided I needed to replace the simple dresser scarf I had sewed for Charlotte's dresser with a nice quilted runner.  I gave myself a huge headache because I was concentrating so hard, and I regretted the use of cream in the runner.  I didn't have any white fabric, so I figured cream would look all right.  I was wrong.  Sigh.

Anyway, Charlotte says she loves it, and I think it will stay in place until the next time I forget how terrible I am at quilting and attempt something better.  I liked the "Disappearing Nine Patch" pattern that I found, and it probably would have helped if I had followed the directions on color placement a little better.  I also didn't use any of the things you're really supposed to use while quilting (a walking foot, spray baste, etc.) so that also kind of worked against me.  I didn't want to take any pictures of it without the dresser tchotchkes in place so no one could see how wonky it was.

But enough about its shortcomings -- voila, the new dresser topper/table runner for Charlotte's room!

I think I shouldn't have used bias tape for the binding, because it seems to sort of pull and wrinkle sideways.  This also could be user-error, of course.

Teeny basket and some quilting issues

This fabric basket is teeny -- the bottom measures 5" x 3.5" and it is only 3.5" tall without counting the handles.  Since there was a piecing component to the basket, I figured it couldn't be THAT difficult.  I have a horrible time keeping consistent seam allowances (maybe I need one of those 1/4" feet?), and it really shows in anything pieced like this.  From this angle, it doesn't look TOO bad.

Even from this angle, you can't tell anything is wonky about the piecework.  The lining is a little loose though.  (I should have sewn it a little smaller so it would sit nicer.)

From this angle, it's a horror show.  I really don't have a good explanation for how this happened, but I can tell you it became clear that something was awry when I was too far into this project just to trash it. I finished it and will probably let Charlotte use it for something or other.  That girl can never have too many baskets or bags.