Winter Table Runner for Dianne

After my friend Dianne's Mom passed away, she asked me to finish a couple of quilt projects for her. One of them is the turquoise Irish Chain shown in a previous post. The other was a simple table runner. It was just a solid piece of fabric, layered with fleece and backed in a solid green. I believe that Dianne's Mom had intended just to do a flip and turn, but Dianne requested that I quilt it.

Here is Dianne with her new table runner.

I wasn't sure what to mark the white fabric with so I turned to my friendly blog readers for suggestions. Several people recommended marking the lines with blue painters tape (you can buy this at any hardware store). I've done this before and it works well. Simply put the tape down and use it as a guide. Sew next to the tape, not through it. It peels right off.

I started by marking lines six inches apart (the width of my ruler). I stitched the lines using my walking foot.

Here's another view.

Naturally six inches apart was just too big, so I added another line in between, making the quilting lines three inches apart. I had always planned to quilt in both directions, but instead of quilting in a square pattern, when I added the vertical lines, I moved the ruler to a 45 degree angle and made diamonds. I think they look nice.

This is the front.

You can see the diamonds more easily on the reverse side.

Finishing the table runner, late at night, it was time to hit the stash for the perfect binding fabric. Down in the basement to my deep, dark Stash, I found the perfect piece of plain, dark green, almost an exact match for the backing fabric from Dianne's Mom. I rarely buy solids and I know that this piece of fabric is more than 20 years old because I bought it on a shopping trip as part of a scrap bag with my friend Sandie before she had her daughter (who has graduated from college). This just goes to prove that you can never have too much fabric!

Here is the table runner in Dianne's dining room. You may recall that I made her a pink table runner in 2016, shown here. Dianne is selling her house so she painted the dining room a neutral color for resale purposes.

Thanks for visiting.

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy