Table Scraps and Quilting with Rulers

Hi and welcome! I've finished my July Table Scraps Challenge and took out my quilting rulers to see what I could do. It was interesting and productive 😊 Let me share this weekend's learning with you.

July's Table Scraps Challenge

You may have seen a few preview pictures of my quilting in the last post. It turns out that July's colour was aqua, not teal, although teal is just the darker form of aqua. Anyway there is a little bit of aqua in this piece as well as lots of teal. The theme was butterfly and this was the highlight of the "Butterflies Table Topper".

Butterflies Table Topper

Notice in the image below, the milk can that my girlfriend's painted for me. The fall side matches this month's Butterflies Table Topper.

Butterflies Table Topper matches the fall side of the milk can

For the binding, I used a print of small colourful butterflies on a white background. I wouldn't normally use a light fabric but I'm glad that I did. Yes, a darker aqua fabric would blend in but this is cute and fanciful, just like the runner. Yay for doing something outside of my comfort zone!😁

Butterflies Table Topper and phlox

Here are a couple of detail views of the quilting. This was done with rulers and free motion quilting (FMQ)

Some of the ruler and FMQ

The three butterflies

Quilting with Rulers

As I mentioned in the last post, I knew that I had done some quilting with rulers and taken a course with Silly Moon. I had never posted it. When I found my practice pieces, I remembered why. Although the course was very good, I had problems with the universal darning foot that I had used with the rulers. If you don't get it just right, the tension can be off, which is what had happened. I had also used spray adhesive on my quilting samples and it had left stains. After these trials, I just put everything away!

However, after quilting with the rulers on the Butterflies Table Topper, I did figure out how to adjust the darning foot so that it worked fine. I watched a video on YouTube that suggested that I use a credit card underneath the foot to make sure that it was adjusted properly. The credit card has to slide easily under the foot. It worked!

Adjusting the tension of the darning
foot with an old credit card

Here are some of the samples that I quilted with the Silly Moon Eggie rulers.

Overlapping one Eggie ruler

Using the straight Eggie 6 ruler

Using various Eggie rulers

You can see in the image below some of the ruler work. 

• At the top, I used a large Eggie (oval) ruler to make two lines and then stitch pebbles between them.
• Underneath the first butterfly, you can see the overlapping semi-circles and the straight lines over them. I used different sizes of the Eggie rulers and then the straight ruler at the top.
• For the bottom butterfly, I used the straight ruler to make some of the straight "V" lines. 
• Finally, to the right of the bottom butterfly, the larger Eggie ruler was used to make overlapping curves. 

FMQ and ruler work in the Butterflies Table Topper 

While looking for my sandwich pieces, I found these four samplers that I made in 2017 as part of the Learning Quilt-A-Long I hosted. For the month of October that year, I made four scrappy samplers and used different batting for each of them. I then quilted, bound them and washed them. It turns out that on these small samplers, there wasn't much difference between them except for the silk/polyester batting, which was so much thinner but fine to quilt on. If you want to read more about this experiment, the links are below.

Four samplers now being used as placemats

What I learned

• Looking at my sampler placemats, I noticed that my FMQ was possibly better than it is now, several years later. I would attribute that to taking my time back then, as opposed to just doing it now! I do tend to just go for it instead of preparing properly and FMQ carefully. I think that I need to learn to slow my FMQ down.
• I never thought of using my square samplers as placemats because in my mind, placemats are rectangular. Since joining in the Table Scraps Challenge, I noticed that a few people make their placemats square - so now I have four lovely new placemats. 😊
• I'm glad that I played with quilting with the rulers. It really is great for straight lines (so I'll keep them handy) but I'm really not sure what else to do with them except for those ovals and curved lines. I suspect that I won't be investing in many more rulers, unless I figure out what else to do with them. If you have any ideas, please let me know!

Related links

• Butterflies Table Topper
• Stitching and FMQ on Free Motion Mavericks, July 25, 2024
• Quilting with Rulers
• Stitching and FMQ on Free Motion Mavericks, July 25, 2024
• FMQ a neutral quilt on Free Motion Mavericks, November 06, 2019
• Four Samples
• More learning and updates, November 05, 2017
• Learning QAL - October Sum Up, October 25, 2017

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including Free Motion Mavericks and July's Table Scraps Challenge. Why not check some of them out? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Oh Scrap!, Patchwork & Quilts, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, TGIFF,

Project details

"Butterflies Table Topper"

made for the 2024 Table Scraps Challenge

Materials: commercial fabric scraps

Techniques: scrappy improv piecing, appliqué, FMQ and quilting with rulers