Sunday, March 27, 2022

A little yellow and floral runner

No matter how busy I get, I love to do something unexpected and fun. This week I made a runner for The Joyful Quilter's March TABLE SCRAPS Challenge. The themes were yellow/gold and floral. It was good to play with simple blocks and a thrill to free motion quilt (FMQ) it.

TABLE SCRAPS challenge

As you may know, I try not to get too involved in challenges because I have so much going on....but every once in a while, I let go of that guideline and go for it. Also, since I didn't tell anyone that I was linking up (I love when there is no sign up), there was no pressure if it didn't get done.

A yellow runner to welcome the spring

I was going to use one of Cynthia Brunz's (of the Oh Scrap! party) Scrap Mixology Modules (I have modules 1 to 3). I thought that I was doing great until I realised that I had just sewn a bunch of strips together but with no neutral colours in between for 9 patch. So this is a variation of her Chaser block, from her Module 3 Scrap Mixology booklet.

When I start sewing strips together, something comes over me and I have no time to read instructions - I just want to sew and then I have to make it up as I go along.😊 One day, I'll start by planning a little bit so that I can make her actual Chaser block.

Scrappy yellow floral runner

I don't have any photos of the process, except for all of the blocks on my design wall. At first, I really didn't like what I was seeing. As I started re-arranging the blocks in some sort of order, I started warming up to it.

Since I took a whole bunch of pictures, I may as well share them with you. I find that I can see patterns and problems better in a photo than in real life.

A bit of a mix on the design wall

Putting some order in the blocks

Slowly getting there!

Flipping the brown edges around

Final design with strong yellow strips meeting

Once I decided on a final design, I started sewing them together in rows. Of course I managed to sew the rows in the wrong order but the un-stitching wasn't too tedious and well worth it.

Since the runner was supposed to be mostly yellow, I used bright yellow thread to FMQ a simple variation of Angela Walter's Feather Meander. It's a variation because I don't do much echoing and also add leaves and sprigs here and there 😊 My design is more of a flower meander than a feather meander.

Details of the FMQ

I also have to show you the back since it's such a great piece of fabric that a friend, who was clearing up her mother's stash, gave me! The binding is also from that gifting 😊

Isn't that an amazing fabric of pineapple and tropical flowers?

What I learned

Sometimes I really need to slow down and actually think about what I'm going to do. I get in trouble when I just start sewing pieces of fabric together. It often comes out well in the end but it might be a little less stressful.
I'm starting to realise that I like the problem solving that goes with not planning too much, so I may have to just embrace the stress of the problem solving!
It was so good to just sew and then quilt - no big expectations of artistic merit, just pure play (even if I got a little stressed about the layout!).
The yellow quilting thread and the binding does make the runner more yellow than it looked on the design wall.

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