20 December 2010

Table runners


My latest focus in the handmade holiday madness is a pair of linen table runners. The first is about 12" x 36", inspired by a project in Yoko Saito's "Patchwork Lesson." I came upon the book at the Kinokuniya Bookstore in San Francisco's Japantown. While the book is in Japanese and most of the projects are handbags (not at the top of my interests), the fabrics and quilting are wonderful. I think I'll buy it next time I'm in the neighborhood.

The inspiration project is a handbag with a row of wonky applique circles featuring the same cross effect. The circles are cropped on the cover of the book, though the actual project is more striking.



I sewed the contrasting strips into the circle fabric, then pieced the circles into the continuous background linen using the six-minute circle technique. The circles went well, though I would recommend leaving at least a 3/4" seam allowance on the background fabric, and I never quite achieved the advertised time of six minutes.


I finished with straight line machine quilting that echoes and extends the the circle strips, then finally some hand stitched circles.

The second table runner is a wave of wonky stars, again all linen, that I'll trim down to a finished size of 15" x 72". I'm having a hard time figuring out how to quilt this one. I'm considering some free-motion swirls for a "The Starry Night" effect.



How would you quilt it?

12 comments:

  1. every time I came here I can see just wonderful things! Your work is so beautiful! Love that runner with all those stars!

    and I think the swirls is the best option!

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  2. I second what RosaMaria said. I love both runners, but especially the circles!

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  3. Oh, dear, I may start quilting. Must stop looking!

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  4. I can't help you with the quilting question but these are simply beautiful!

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  5. I love your star table runner! Just yesterday I decided to make a wonky star table runner for my mom and then today this picture popped up on flickr! I hope mine turns out half as beautiful as yours. No suggestions on the quilting...I'm struggling with that myself.

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  6. Wish you were on our side of the bay... East Bay MQG has some great artists :) Love the table runners.

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  7. What about a single long, meander of machine quilting through the stars and then repeat that design only in the negative (white) space?

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  8. I would quilt an outline around the stars and swirls around them in varying sizes

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  9. They look awesome... Well I would probably outline the stars and make an expanding shape from there so it looked like a burst of stars twinkling.

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