Gift table runner

A friend of mine is having a 50th birthday this coming weekend. Unfortunately I can't make the celebration as I'll be around 500kms away, but I thought I could make her a small gift. So I worked out this table runner.

The strips were pretty easy, if just a little time consuming, but worth it. They varied in width from 1 and half to 2 and half inches. The lengths I also varied, the total width of the runner 14". Then since the wavy free-motion quilting seemed to work quite well on this table runner I'd made before 

I thought I'd give it a go on this one too. Pretty happy with the result. And fortunately I had just enough of the olive green to make the binding. I'll be finishing up that hand sewing around the binding tonight so that I can pass it on tomorrow. 

Here's a shot of the backing which is featured on the front as well. 

I think my friend will like it. What's your 'go to' gift for a friend at short notice?

Runner stats:

Width: 14"

Length: 50"

Wadding: 60/40 Cotton/Polyester

Thread: Gutterman's and Rasant

Until next time,

Lynn

Baby squares

I've been making a baby quilt in anticipation of a couple of babies I know are due either soon or in a few months - no harm in being ready. I've made this pattern before, back in March, called Baby blue. And I quilted it quite simply cross hatching the squares and doing a swirl in the white sashing.

But when I saw what Louise did with her similar Butterfly garden I knew I wanted to try that. So here is my version:

Mine doesn't have that lovely double type sashing that Louise's has, but these were the squares I had, so I went with it. While the quilting is pretty straightforward, the fact that it goes around in a curve means that on my domestic machine I still need to support the remainder of the quilt on my left as I go, which took just a little more organising (chair on the side etc). 

The quilting shows up a little better on the back:

And here's a closer up of those squares:

I needed to include those and the piece of white sashing like the front as I didn't quite have sufficient fabric for the backing but I'm pleased I got to use up that pretty pae green and yellow/orange dots. The colours are a little more accurate on the closer up shot but I'm going to have to get working on taking better camera shots. 

This is a reasonably quick baby quilt and I like the idea of the various ways of quilting. Might even try another and just do a basic stipple. 

Well back to the next project - I'm having fun creating a library shelf quilt, but will show photos of that a little later. As usual there are also projects to complete!

Until next time,

Lynn

Bows & Swirls

Do you make the same pattern more than once? I decided that since I had quite a good time making a bow tie quilt here but quilted it with a Baptist fan pattern, I thought I'd give bow ties another go, but try a different layout and quilting. Well I've had fun quilting this bow tie quilt.

Since it was more free-motion swirls than the Baptist fan it felt easier. It was also a little smaller - mostly dictated by the fact that I'd only bought one metre of the background fabric and it ran out. If I had thought a bit smarter, I could probably have used a plain background at least for the centre, but of course when you're making the blocks you don't necessarily know what's going to go in the centre. 

Anyway, here's a closer up of the swirls:

I did some large and some smaller to fit in one half of the bow tie. I also did some orange peel on the wider border. I'm still thinking I may add some ribbon candy to that final cream border. Again, since I was using scraps from my stash, I didn't have enough of that border to complete the whole biding, so I used some on two of the shorter sides and a close complement on the longer sides. Since we have two single beds at our holiday place, I think these two bow ties will sit on those. That is, unless I decide to make yet a third, a little larger and then give this one away. Time will tell. 

Here's the back and all that swirly goodness. The photo seems to show as though the needle has made strong indentations, but in reality its quite smooth. 

They may have turned out a little more square than round, but it fits on the front at least. And there's always room for improvement. 

Until next time,

Lynn