I have been working on lots of projects lately that are for charity or for family gifts. I decided to take a break and make something quick and bright for our house. With lots of yellow scraps on hand, this was a breeze to make. The table runner was copied from a picture I had seen on Pinterest. It comes from a book titled “Set the Table”, published by Martingale. I based the runner on the picture but figured out the piecing myself.  Not rocket science here.  Lots of 2 1/2″ strips to cut. The white strips were cut to four lengths (3″, 4″, 5″, and 6″ Then I laid them out in the order I thought looked best. I wanted a total width of 14″.  Once I had the white strips laid out, I just trimmed the correct yellow strip to the approximate length.  After all the rows were made, I sewed each to the other. Taking pictures of your layout before sewing the pieces is helpful.  Much quicker to refer back to the pictures and keep your original plan intact.

 

The top went together very fast.  I found a bright striped fabric to use as the backing. The match isn’t perfect but I really didn’t want to purchase anything for this project.  I quilted it with straight line quilting, using random widths.  I quilted it a bit tighter on the center white strips and more loosely on the yellow/orange strips. Looking at it now I think it would have been better to be more consistent between the color areas.

With each project I create, I hope to learn something new or improve the way I do something. With this project I learned to machine sew the binding.  Binding gets a bit tedious and for some items I think it is perfectly acceptable to machine sew rather than hand sew it.  Especially for an item like a table runner that will likely be washed regularly.  Anyway, using trusty ole Pinterest, I set out to find a tutorial on machine binding.  I came up with several.  I ended up using one from Christaquilts.com and another found at Fromthebluechair.com. Both basically had the same idea but the tutorial at Christaquilts.com showed a great way to attach the two loose ends once your binding is sewn on. I have had a heck of a time getting my bindings to lie flat once I join the two ends (beginning and finish).  Christa’s method is awesome and this is the first time I have been really happy with the way the join looks on my binding.  So thanks Christa!

The stitching on the binding looks fine.  It is going to take some practice to become adept at this but I think for the first time, it turned out nicely.

Here is the finished runner!  Perfect for summer.

And the back side with the bright stripe. Like I said, not a perfect match but good enough for this project.

Love having a quick finish for this week.   Linking up to TGIFF at www.glorybequilter33.blogspot.ca.  Also linking to RichardandTanyaQuilt, Link a Finish Friday! And finally, linking to Amanda Jean at Crazymomquilts.com!!

Yay – my second blog post ever!!