Running With Donna

Or at least making a runner with her.  Sort of.  She's in VA and I'm in KS...

To make a long story short, my friend Donna and I decided to make a table runner "together" - posting updates, tips, and encouragement via FaceBook and email.  It sounded like a great idea and actually was tons of fun.

It's one of those where you start with rectangles, slice them into triangles, sew them back together to form 2-tone rectangles, slice them up, rearrange the slices ... I learned a similar technique in a book I have called Start With Squares by Martha Thompson, only you ... start with squares. :) I did so well with the technique 10 years ago that the full-sized quilt is actually a throw pillow -- if you know what I mean.

The best tip this pattern writer gave was to starch your fabrics first.

STARCH!

You're going to be sewing on the bias a LOT, so it helps tremendously.

Rectangles cut, cut on the diagonal and ready to sew back up

My Guide Dog for the Color Blind was right there with me, lending moral support and making sure I took breaks now and then to play with him.  :)

Sewing the rectangles back together

My tip is to use your walking foot to help you with all that bias work! It helps avoid any stretching.

Preparing to slice the pieced rectangles into logs

She had us slice a bit off either side of the rectangle, then cut into 2.25" logs.  That having to shave a bit off either side should have been my first clue that the pattern writer could have spent a bit more time in math class... but that's OK.  

Slice the rectangles up and rearrange the logs:

Pretty cool. Here's what a block looks like:

I confess, I was pretty excited at that stage. I sewed two together and was anxious to see how it was going to look with the "center" of the table runner -- in my case, the same fabric as my focal fabric.

Clearly, Dave was excited as well.

I'll post more progress tomorrow!  Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!