Moda Charm Pack table runner

A while back, I bought a Moda 2wenty-Thr3e Charm Pack (with a gift certificate I had won from the Fat Quarter Shop) and it sat for a long time in my sewing room.  I wasn't sure what to do with it because the color don't really fit with my decor.  I love the colors, but anything I made wasn't going to look right in my house.  I finally got inspired to just start piecing it together (after slicing all of the squares in half).  I know I should have mixed it in with some solids to make the patterns stand out more, but I kind of like the chaos.

I backed it with a lightweight denim and wrapped that around to the front to act as the binding.  To quilt it, I just made large diamonds with wide-spaced diagonal lines.  My walking foot performed nicely!

The prints in the charm pack are adorable.  I especially love the little tickets and the random words here and there.

The cameras are pretty funny too.

So what am I going to do with this runner?  Well, as I was finishing it up, I realized it would match perfectly in the kitchen of my neighbor, whose birthday was coming up soon.  We're celebrating with her tonight, so I'm going to bring it along to surprise her.  It might look good on her kitchen island when she's entertaining.


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Christmas chevron runner

Can someone please tell me whether this is a table runner, a table topper, or what?  I have no idea what to call these little shortie table runners that I make.  If a table runner is running a marathon, these shortie ones I make are just running sprints.  I like them a little shorter for use on my kitchen island so we're not constantly having to remove them.  Here's the latest one I made from a remnant that caught my eye at the fabric store:

I'm really bummed that I have to put this away with the rest of the Christmas decorations, but it will be really fun to bring it out next December.  I used the backing (which was cut from an old tablecloth) also as the binding using my favorite tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew.  The cloth was probably a bit too thick to be doing it that way, but I forged ahead and forced it into submission at the mitered corners.  I used felt as the batting.

The most exciting part of the project (and what was actually the whole reason I tackled it) was that I was able to use my brand-spankin' new walking foot for the quilting.  You might ask "what quilting?" because it's pretty subtle.  I just used off-white thread and followed the edges of the off-white chevrons.  I didn't want to distract from the pattern of the fabric, and I was pleased with the result.  The walking foot is awesome, and I can't wait to use it again.

I have a bit more of the fabric and I'm thinking of sewing up a quick piped basket to throw in with the Christmas decorations since I gave away all of the piped baskets I made last month.

Sonia's dresser scarf

In Sonia's new house, her dresser doesn't fit inside her closet and thus sits out in the open.  Erin decided that the dresser needed a dresser scarf to protect it, and I hunted down some cute purple fat quarters and yardage to get the job done.  I sort of improvised a more modern-looking design (since country chic isn't exactly Erin's style) and came up with this.

It's about 40" long and 16" wide.  I had all sorts of issues getting the plain fabric not to look all puckery, but Erin assures me no one will notice once there are a few knick knacks strategically placed on top.

I quilted the plain parts with rows 1/4" apart.  I also chose to zig zag the final stitching on the binding because I wanted to make triple sure that I would catch the back (which was baaaaaaaaarely wide enough).  It doesn't look too bad, actually.

See those darn puckers and folds?  Grrrrrr.  I'm sure an experienced quilter could tell me what I was doing wrong.  I did starch the fabric first and I used spray basting to stick the pieced top to the batting (which was felt).  It was looking puckery even before I quilted it.  Oh well.  Just look at it from far away and squint a little and it looks fine!

I used my quarter inch foot for the first time and it was awesome!  I still need more practice with it, but hopefully this will help with my seam allowance issues.

I will be bringing this to Texas when we fly there on July 5th, and I hope to take a picture of it in place on the dresser then.

Granny's summery table runner

I whipped up a quick table runner (about 36" x 9") for Corey's Granny last weekend, again using the Robert Kaufman jelly roll.  I still have quite a bit of it left, too!  Anyway, the backing is just some royal blue Kona cotton, and I put felt inside as the batting.  You can't really see it in this horrible cell phone picture, but I quilted the top using big Xs across each of the four blocks.

Instead of binding (which I was too chicken to do on a project for an amazing quilter such as Granny!), I used piping.  Granny thought that was very fun.

The only bummer about doing everything that way is that there isn't any neat quilting to show through on the plain backing.  I suppose I could add the quilting after final assembly, but then I would have to deal with the ugly backstitches showing.  I could also add a second layer of batting to the backing and quilt it separately before assembly.  Ooh -- I'm definitely going to try that next time!

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).

Pleated block table topper

The first gift I made for my mom for Mother's Day was a table topper that featured pleated (and unpleated) blocks.  I got the idea from this cool tutorial, but I didn't want to make anything quite that long.  I thought the aqua and coral fabric looked nice and springy, and the black sashing added a bit of edge to it.

It's hard to tell in the photos, but one block is pleated horizontally, and the other is pleated vertically.

The coral fabric is left over from the valances I made for Charlotte's nursery, the aqua is left over from the cosmetic bags I sewed for Faith Carol, and the black is from the Rescue Bots bag I made for Ben.

The back of the table topper just has some of the black pieced together with the fur-like print turned in alternating directions just for fun.  I made my own binding from the aqua fabric.  There is felt in between the layers, and I chose not to add any quilting because it was such a small project (and was spray basted together).

A thank you for a great kindergarten teacher

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week at Charlotte's school (at least I think so -- I kind of deleted the email that the administration sent about it and couldn't find it again).  Charlotte's kindergarten teacher is awesome.  You would never know this is her first year as a classroom teacher and that she was probably born in the 1990s.  She has a really calm and gentle manner, and I think it rubs off on her students because I'm consistently amazed at how well-behaved they are when I volunteer in the classroom.  I can hardly get MY six-year-old to do anything I ask her, and somehow this teacher gets 21 of them to do whatever she asks.  If anyone deserved a nice thank you present, it is definitely this woman!

Anyway, I made her this table topper in a herringbone pattern (I think that's the right term, right?) by just sort of winging it.  I didn't get the idea from anyplace specific.  I have a ton of green scraps in my scrap bin, so green seemed like the logical choice.  Charlotte's teacher went to Michigan State (yet another reason we love her), so I knew she would like the tiny bit of MSU fabric thrown in there as well.

Some of the seams line up, and some don't.  Overall, there is a general sense of it all coming close at least.  Just keep a good distance away from it and it works.  I tried to be as consistent as I could, but I probably should have starched all of the fabrics first.  It's kind of fun working with scraps, because it's like a trip down project memory lane.

The backing/wrap-around binding is a black linen from my stash.  I found a tutorial that results in better corners with the wrap-around binding from Cluck Cluck Sew, and I was happy with the results even with using the bulky linen.  I cut each piece on the top to be 2" x 7" and sewed them at 30-degree angles and 60-degree angles onto 4" wide strips of muslin.  Then, I spray basted it to some felt and added the backing/binding.  I didn't do any quilting because I was terrified to screw it up.

More primary polkadot fun

Made another small basket with some more of the Robert Kaufman polka dot strips from the jelly roll I won.  This one is just like Alicia's, but taller and with longer handles.  Not sure why I made the handles this long, because they look a tad silly.  This basket now holds the bill that need to be paid.

I also made a little hot pad/table topper/mug rug/whatever just playing with piecing.  I still have major issues with sewing straight and keeping a consistent seam allowance.  I'm thinking a quarter inch foot should be something I ask for on my birthday.

Again, I tried the wrap-around binding, and again I had issues with the mitered corners.  My friend, Kym, told me she liked the peekaboo corners though, so I'm going to pretend like they were meant to be like that.

I had fun with the quilting on this one, despite the fact that my machine was skipping stitched even after I changed my needle, cleaned out the bobbin area, rethreaded everything, and altered the tension.  I probably needed a heavier needle or something.  My latest theory is that my machine seems to get cranky with quilting spray basted items with felt as the batting.  I will be testing out this theory by changing the variables to see if I can isolate the problem.  Of course, it could also be that I need a walking foot for my machine.  Yet another birthday wish, I guess!

Quilt as you go and self-binding summer table runner

I have read about the "quilt as you go" technique in many places.  Basically, it's where you sew the pieces to the batting and backing as you attach them together.  I had some more of the Robert Kaufman jelly roll left over and decided to try making a summery table runner for my kitchen island using that technique.  It was interesting to try, but not really all that much easier than piecing the top together and then quilting it to the felt.  Meh.

I added a bit of scrap denim at the ends because I thought that gave it a little interest.  The backing and binding are from an old sheet my friend, Kym, gave me to use for sewing.  The stripes are probably a little too busy for the runner, but I kind of like them.  If I made this again, I would probably use solid red for the backing and binding.

To amuse myself, I decided to try the binding technique where you cut the backing large enough to wrap around to the front to serve as binding (sometimes referred to as a "self-binding" method, which I think gives it way too much credit because it's make it sound like there's less work, which there really is not in my opinion).

The binding technique was cool enough, but I don't like how the mitered corners sort of gape open.  I swear I followed the directions exactly, but somehow this is still happening.  I'm not sure how to fix this, short of hand sewing them shut (GACK!  I hate hand sewing!) or stitching an ugly zig-zag to hold them together.  Hmm.  Will have to research to see if anyone else has a better solution.  I did think the binding technique was fun and want to try it again.

So, although summer is still WAAAAAAY off, we're going to just pretend it's just around the corner and put this puppy on the island now.  Maybe the weather will finally get the hint?

Odie's dresser scarf

My friend Kym's daughter, Odessa, has a brightly painted yellow room with lots of gorgeous colors.  I had some more fabric left over from the fabric bundle I had made my Easter-y table runner from, and it reminded me of Odie's bedroom.  I wanted to try the disappearing nine-patch pattern again (like the runner I made for Charlotte's dresser, and this is what I came up with.  Not sure if you call it a dresser scarf or a table runner if it's quilted like this!

I just used regular old store-bought extra-wide bias tape for the binding.  I hate how see-through it is, so I would definitely use a darker color if I made this again.  I just stitched in the ditch in the seams between the rows and columns of blocks because I figured something with piecing this busy didn't need a whole lot else going on.

I swear that the backing (some navy bottom-weight fabric) doesn't look this wrinkly in person.  You can see the quilting I did here a little better.

I hope Odie likes it!  Charlotte and Odie are very good buddies, and Charlotte declared that OF COURSE Odie will love it.  Good enough for me.

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.

Valentine's Day table runner

I have accumulated quite a few Valentine's Day decorations over the past decade of being married, but I didn't have anything cute to put on the kitchen island.  My mother-in-law had bestowed upon me a bunch of holiday-themed fabric scraps a few months back, so I dug through them and pulled out some with hearts on them to mix in with a couple from my stash.  One morning of watching Peter and his bestie, Ben, playing in the basement, plus a bit of time the next afternoon while the boys were playing at Ben's house, and voila!

The runner is about one yard long, and about 14" wide.  I used store-bought quilt binding bias tape for the edging because I was too lazy to make any of my own.

I cut the strips 3" wide, sewed three of them together, cut the strips into squares, and stuck them together in alternating directions.  Worked out a tad better than previous quilting efforts.  Here is a better shot from overhead.  Peter had a conniption when he saw me standing on the island, and then demanded to come up as well.  Um, no.

I'm low on felt, so I actually used two layers of fusible fleece in between the top and backing.  They weren't really fused to anything, though.  The backing is the red striped fabric (from an old sheet my friend, Kym, gave me to use for sewing projects).  I'm still too chicken to do anything other than straight-line quilting, so I just drew a grid on with a water-soluble fabric marking pencil and went to town.

Unfortunately, the blue marking pencil is not quite as water-soluble as I was led to believe, so you can still see it in spots.  I'm petrified to wash this thing, but that might be the thing necessary to clean it up.  My kids are bound to spill something on it soon, anyway!


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Christmas burlap table runner

I made myself a Christmas table runner because I now have a dining room that can actually accommodate my table extended to its full 10-foot length!  I added all the leaves for the Thanksgiving dinner we just hosted (with my parents, both siblings, brother-in-law, and niece) and it was all kinds of awesome to have a table runner than ran nearly the length of the table.  Of course, I didn't have it bound just yet, but I put the quilted a trimmed version on the table just for fun.  Here is how it looks all done and laid out:

It was simple to make, and I would have been done ages ago if my sewing machine hadn't been at the shop for a week and a half in the middle of the process.  I simply cut the burlap the width I wanted it, sewed two pieces together to get the final length, spray basted the top to some felt, spray basted the backing to the other side of the felt, quilted with crisscrossed lines, trimmed it, and bound it all up.

Finished, that sucker is 81" long!  If I had all of the leaves out of the table, the runner would definitely hang over the edges.  Too bad I didn't get a good shot of the awesome Santa that Aunt Janet made me four years ago.

[Man, I really need to paint that room.  The previous owner of this house had a penchant for bland colors, brass, and wallpaper, and I hope to change a lot of that soon!]

Binding is fun, but I'm still not so good at it.  There are several spots on the back where I didn't quite catch the back fold, and I am going to go back and hand-stitch those places when I get enough gumption.  I just cut four-inch strips of fabric with the grain rather than on the bias since I wasn't going to be going around any curves.  I read somewhere recently that you don't have to bother with that whole bias thing if you're binding only straight lines.  That seems to be true!

I quilted the burlap diagonally between the silver polka dots, but you can hardly see it.  Probably a good thing since I didn't draw guide lines and just sort of tried to keep the foot between the lines of dots while I sewed.  It looks okay from the back, but not perfect since I was having tension issues (most of the quilting was done before I took my machine in to be serviced -- now the tension is perfect!).

The backing is the same Kona cotton red as the binding.  I didn't take a reverse shot, but it's not hard to imagine the red with the tan stitching crisscrossing it.

This was fun to make, but damn is it hard to handle something so long when you're trying to get it quilted!  I can't even fathom how people quilt bedspreads on their home machines.  I know some people do it, but I think they must be nuts.

Thank you again to Amanda, who gave me this awesome burlap.  I think it was from Jo-Ann's, which has a very fun selection of printed burlap that I noticed last time I was there.  Burlap sheds all over the place while you're cutting and sewing it, but it looks awesome once sewn!

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.

More past sewing for posterity's sake

More items sewn over the past few months . . .

Tape measure pouch (this one was just an experiment and I learned a lot from making it -- I'm totally remaking it now that I know the quirks of my Husky when you're doing a really wide zig zag!):

Peek-a-Boo Toy Sack for all of Peter's Star Wars toys:

Peek-a-Boo Heart Pouch for all of Charlotte's valuable treasures:

Crazy zipper pouch from a book I checked out from the library and no longer have in my possession (I hated the pattern because it left all sorts of raw edges inside):

Here's the flip side.  All of the zippers open to separate compartments!

Little Makeup Bag for Charlotte to use for her treasures (turned out way shorter than I intended, which is further proof that I should stick to following patterns and tutorials exactly rather than trying to tweak them!):

Felt Batman mask alongside Petey's beloved amigurumi Batman that Auntie Ernie made him:

A drawstring top "Bagsket" for the kids' toys that obviously has some issues with handle floppiness (likely to do with rough handling by one or both of the munchkins):

iPad case that I absolutely adore (despite the funkiness in the topstitching on the denim by the zipper):

I loved it so much that I made another virtually identical one for Mom (though this photo is actually just another view of mine):

Mini simple table-topper that I designed myself to experiment with quilting and binding (neither of which I am good at!):

Bigger simple table runner:

Storage cube with a vinyl pocket for a label, using cardboard inside to give it shape:

It fits all of our Wii games and controllers perfectly.

Clear Toy Storage Bag for Amanda to use for her gallon o' games (with special guest star Rocky):

Snappy Bag for Amanda (love the ruffle but hate the raw edges inside the pouch):

Kids' Activity Bag for Maisie (turned out cute except for the fact that I goofed up a measurement and didn't make the drawstring top part long enough!):

Here it is open:

Another Peek-a-Boo Toy Sack for Quinn:

Snappy coin pouch for Faith Carol (using tape measure for the snap opening):

Another origami bag for Faith Carol:

A mesh beach bag for Faith Carol inspired by this tutorial but mostly designed myself (my first time using grommets!):

Recycled jeans pocket pouch for Sonia (from some old jeans of Charlotte's that got a huge hole in one knee):

Charlotte's First Day of School skirt (made from my favorite circle skirt tutorial, of course!):

Poodle skirts for Charlotte and Maisie (also from the circle skirt tutorial):

Tool belts for Anderson, Maddie, and Owen (from this tutorial):

And one for Peter, too!  Looks especially good with a Batman costume.

Another one of those sundresses from Corey's old t-shirt (given to Sonia):

This isn't really any sewing, but it used a bunch of felt.  It's a Christmas tree the kids could decorate and redecorate.  We hot glued on sequins to felt ornaments and the kids loved it.  We made a few more for friends and family, and each one was a hit.  Erin made one for Sonia, too!

And finally, a great seat-back organizer that Erin commissioned.  This one was from Simplicity pattern #3731, and I did it in some great laminated cottons that Erin bought for the project: