Table Runners, and "Stringin' My Blues,"

I'm either really early or really late with a Christmas runner!  Fingers were itching and I HAD to sew something!  This is a Missouri Star.  I quilted around the star with invisible thread and made small paisleys with a soft variegated green in the green areas.  Colors are richer in person. 

Success breeds success and I made another one with a regular star, for Fourth of July (below).  The original plan was to quilt the side setting triangles in glitzy fireworks, but my LQS did not have the "right" thread - (that's a first!) - and I'm thinking it's fine the way it is -- I can add "glitz" later.  

Here's the back - cute, and On Sale.

I'm trying to come up with a good border idea for my Rocky Road to Kansas, now called "Stringin' My Blues" - oh yes, using up strings.   This was supposed to mirror the centers of the star blocks. Uhh, I'm not feelin' it!  Try again, Elaine Adair! It's always good to try with a FEW blocks before cutting fabric when one is unsure. 

And now, to my Design Floor -- shade over your eyes - this appears more "in your face" than my planned finish, and when I trim to better proportions, this border idea will "do it".  I'm sewing strings to phone book paper.  This is a 4 1/2 border, but I'll trim to 3 1/2 inches.  I'll widen the white border #1, to the proportion of that side setting white triangle, and will narrow down the string border, and will likely add yet another white border, same proportion, ending up with a 9 inch border.  The quilt blocks are 12 inches.  I'm happy!  For me, it was important to carry on the suggestion of frugality, strings, using up, and making do.  My border strings were approximately the same width as what is used in the stars.  And yes, I AM using blue strings from various projects as well as adding a few new ones to the mix.  There actually are NO more blue strings in my String Bin!

Hooray, energy and enthusiasm is restored in MY Studio.

Table Runner, Missouri Star

A small project - but it’s finished! I even have my own ‘personal’ label on the back – one of those woven labels you order. This will be a gift for a young wife/mother and her husband who are coming for a visit for Thanksgiving – hope she likes it. At first I wanted to have more ‘modern’ colors, but this is what was on hand. It is 14" x 38", and machine quilted in the ditch with invisible thread because I thought the pattern was outstanding on it’s own.

Rebuilt Log Cabin DONE, with Bonus Table Runner

My Rebuilt Log Cabin is DONE! Yeah -- I think it turned out just fine, considering it truly was a scap quilt. And I didn't purchase one piece (...uhhh... recently) for the project. I machine quilted it, on a year- old Janome Memory Craft 6500, on which I had never machine quilted, and I am very pleased with the evenness it stitched, (no stitch regulator other than my own hands). I used a regular sewing machine thread (a fine Metrosene) in the bobbin, and randomly chose 2 different heavier threads for the top, that sorta matched. Brown was too obvious so I ended up with a gray. The light you see on the closeup shot of the block is not thread, it's reflection. I used a light on the diagonal light areas, and dark, on the diagonal dark areas. (duhhh!) I had 4 blocks that were trimmed wrong (tilted to the left) so I made them into a bonus table runner. This pattern and colors blend well with wood and antiques in my house.

I must tell a short story about the techie who installed my new DSL Line. Almost always, I have a quilt on my living room floor, in one stage or another. I try to watch who visits, because sometimes it must be invisible - there has been more than one man who walked right over it, so I now watch carefully. This techie came to the door, and walked carefully around the quilt, and turned to me and said, "Hey, that might look good with Prairie Points!" Wow, I loved him! He knew all about quilts, the lingo, etc. When he turned on the computer, this Blog page is my home page, and he even took the time to look at the quilts! I love him. Wish I knew his mom so I could tell her what a good 'boy' she raised. A good day.