Christmas Recap

Yes, I'm just now getting to my Christmad recap. Things have been pretty quiet here on the crafting front as of late. We've had much too nice of weather lately (and it seems like everywhere else has had a rough winter) that I've been spending a lot of time prepping our yard and garden and not any time in the sewing room. So, since I don't have anything new to show, I'll show off the stuff that I put together for Christmas presents. 

My husband and I went back to Wisconsin for two weeks for both Christmas and New Year's celebrations and my suitcase was packed to bursting. Thankfully I flew southwest and could check two bags free. I definitely needed both! My siblings and I decided to draw names for a secret Santa gift exchange this year so that cut down on some of the presents I would normally bring, but I ended up making a lot of things for my sister. I'm so happy I drew her name, because I had so many ideas for her!

First I made her an apron out of an old sugar sack she had given me a few years back. She had used it as wrapping for a wreath she made me and told me, "you'll do something fun with it." That I did! These sacks are super absorbent too! I had all of this stuff already at home so I didn't even spend any money on this part of the gift. :)

Next I made her a makeup brush holder. I knew she wanted a set of brushes so I got her some on a huge sale at Target for $10. 

Again, I already had all of the supplies for the roll so the only money spent on this was for the brushes. I wanted the inside to be make-up smudge friendly so I used some brown, yellow and light pink fabric. The outside was an orange and yellow print that was begging to be used for this. My sister really likes the color orange along with other vibrant colors. 

I also made her a journal out of a children's copy of Little Women from Goodwill. That set me back a whopping $2. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it. 

Lastly, I made her a set of napkins and napkin rings. I had the fabric for the napkins already. For the rings. I bent forks that I bought at Target. Those were $1.68 for 4 forks, so roughly $3.00 for the whole set. I put them all into a box that I bought at Ross for about $5. So, that's how I managed to stay in our budget of $20 or less and give her so much stuff. :)

I made two other sets of these napkins and napkin rings. One went to my mother-in-law (same fabric) and the other went to her neighbor, (pictured below) the mother of one of my husband's good friends. We've stayed close and she and her husband even visited us here in Oregon. 

I also made a couple of aprons for my sister-in-law. One was a blue floral print and the other was this tiny white heart on red background print. 

For all of the aprons I made, I used one continuous strap for the waist and neck tie. So, you can put the apron on and then just tug on the waist strings to tighten it around your neck. Then you just tie it in back. It makes it so you don't have to tie the neck if it's too long, you can just adjust it each time you put it on. I love that, because the knots in apron neck ties always irritate me and my neck. 

Well, that pretty much sums up what I made for presents. I did all of that between Thanksgiving and Christmas while traveling back and forth to Wisconsin for both of those holidays. It was a busy couple of weeks! I always think that I'll start my gifts earlier, but that never happens. Maybe that should be my New Year's resolution...

A Very Productive Snow Day

Hello everyone! I don't know about where you're at, but we had some crazy weather here in Wisconsin today. I live in Madison and we got about 18 inches of snow today! That's right... eighteen inches!! They even shut down the university - and this is finals week. That just doesn't happen.

This picture is from the morning snow. By the end of the night it reached the top of the arm of the chair! And to think - we didn't have any snow accumulation on our little balcony before today! We're definitely having a white Christmas this year.

So... I was gifted an extra sewing day that I hadn't planned on, and I so desperately needed it! As of last night I had 12 out of 30 strips for the gray and yellow triangle quilt put together.

Today, I finished sewing up all of the strips, ironed them all, and laid them out to see what it will look like. I had to do the layout in 2 groupings since the quilt is so big. :)

So, here's my timeline for the rest of the quilt, and I sure hope I can stick to this!


Friday night after work: sew all of the rows together into the quilt top. Possibly start basting if I'm not completely drained.

Saturday afternoon after church practice: Start/finish basting. Start quilting - I am going to do straight lines mirroring the triangles on probably every other triangle. I have no idea how long that will take with such a large quilt, but it means I won't have to move the fabric as much as when I'm doing a swirly FMQ pattern.

Sunday afternoon after our church Christmas services (and lunch with Mom): Finish quilting everything. Make the binding and sew that onto the front. Trim off excess backing/batting.

Monday afternoon (I have to work until 12pm): start hand stitching the binding onto the back of the quilt. We are celebrating at my dad's house on Monday night and the quilt will be given away on Tuesday night. So, if I need to I can finish it up on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday: Wash, dry, wrap and give it away!

Phew! This looks tiresome, but I hope I can get it done. The end is definitely in sight!!! Happy holidays and happy crafting everybody!

December Goals Update

Hello everyone! It's been far too long since my last post, but I've been really busy. I have 2 of my December goals solidly done, one in progress and one more basically done. So, here's what I've been working on:

1) I finished the Christmas quilt for my dad!

I really like how it turned out. All in all it's 72"x72". Long enough for it to cover his toes, but small enough to be manageable to quilt! :)

Here's a close up of the back fabric and stitching. I think I might love the back and it's all-over print more than I like the front. I also think my FMQ stitching is improving - not too shabby for a novice! My dad won't notice the mistakes anyway... :)

2) I've finished all of my Christmas cards! Not only are they put together, but they are  signed, stamped and out in the mail to be delivered!

I put my scrapbooking skills to work with these. I made some out of red, green and blue card stock, but the design for them was all the same. I made 27 cards total and probably could have made a couple more if I had really wanted to. I bought the music from Good Will for $1.99. It came in a large booklet of choral music and I used one sheet (cut to size) for each card - basically half for the front and half for the inside. The snow flakes were from a package of Christmas paper I bought several years ago. I just cut them out one by one and glued them on. I really liked the look of music pages for the cards and I'll probably use that element again.

3) I have just about all of my presents done/bought/wrapped. I have to buy just 2 more things which I'll be getting this weekend. But - the big project is getting the next quilt done by the 25th! Otherwise, my cats are very much enjoying playing with the ribbon on the wrapped gifts under the tree (At least it's saving the ornaments from being swiped off the tree!).

4) I have started the quilt for my brother-in-law and his wife. It will be out of all gray and yellow materials and I have all of the triangles cut.

I'm assuming that cutting was the longest part of this project, but I guess I'm about to find out. I've never done a quilt out of triangles before and now I'm going to attempt to make it a queen sized project! I might be a little crazy - just a little.

If you don't hear from me for the next 10 days, now you know why! :) Happy crafting everyone!

Coming Along

Just a quick post here. :) Last night I finished the swirly quilting on my Dad's Christmas quilt. It went pretty quickly, but I had a few snags along the way. I broke 4 (!!) needles on this quilt. I believe it was a combination of tension issues up top and also lint caught in the bobbin area. Re-threading and some cleaning brought me easier quilting once more, so I guess that's something to watch out for in the future! Finishing up the border quilting and getting the binding ready tonight.

Happy crafting!

November Finishes and December Goals

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a nice November and are gearing up (or maybe you're completely ready) for the December crunch! I had a pretty busy November, but still managed to neglect some things on my goal list. As a recap, here's what I had planned to finish up in November:

1) Sew together half of my leaf quilt blocks. Not Done... Sadly this project is still right where it was. I haven't done any more sewing on it at all (and it's not going to make the list for December projects either). This one might end up as a long term WiP or on my New Year's Resolution list. :)

2) Finish the birthday gift for my sister. Done! And it was a huge success. Want to know what it was? I knit her a case for her brand new kindle - which was inside when I gave it to her. She was stoked. (My husband thinks it looks like a cute little monster face.)

This was the second knitting-in-the-round that I've done, and it was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I finished the project in one afternoon which really surprised me! I made a practice one for my dad (it didn't have cables) just to see how it would go before I spent the time on something more complicated. He also liked his case. :)

It was my sister's 30th birthday and her golden birthday on the 30th, so I also made her a special dessert. It was a caramel cream pumpkin pie with meringue topping. This was one of the most complicated desserts I've ever made, but it was worth it. It tasted so good! My mom even brought her creme brule torch so I could toast the meringue at the end. The meringue was really creamy which I did not expect. It was so good that we used the left over meringue for stuffed french toast the next morning at brunch. (Don't worry, the recipe called for cooked meringue, so no humans were poisoned in the making of the pie or brunch.)

3) Finish the Irish Hiking Scarf. Done! It turned out lovely, and seems to be a favorite thing for my cat Sasha to steal out of the closet. I've had to hide it multiple times from her, but she's the sneakiest little thing at getting in there! Luckily she hasn't destroyed it or really done any damage to it each time she's stolen it. One of my previous scarfs she completely shredded, so this one must be more durable. It's made out of Caron Simply Soft Yarn in Sage Green. The picture looks a little funky with the colors, but it's a nice hunter green or Christmasy-green color and I think its future owner will like it.

4) Plan and cut out the pieces for the Christmas quilt for my dad. Done and done! And I've even gone a couple steps farther by piecing the entire top and basting all 3 layers together. It's sitting on my sewing desk waiting for me to have time to quilt it up. :)

My dad really loves the Peanuts gang. He owns pretty much every cartoon movie they ever made with Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He also really loves Christmas. He gets so excited to put up the tree and have hot chocolate and make cookies - it's cute. So I know he's going to love this. The top roughly measures 60"by 60". I used 12 inch blocks in either a 9 patch or 4 patch pattern. I had gone back and forth with how to quilt it when my husband had a great idea. He said, "Why don't you quilt it so it looks like the wind is blowing over it." Great idea! The back is one fabric print of the Peanuts characters on ice skates and some of Snoopy's cousin Spike with his Christmas cactus, so the swirly wind motif will fit in with the back and the front. Not to mention that should quilt pretty quickly as a big swirly pattern.

5) Put together and send out the 2 Color Bee Shocked bee blocks for November and December. Done and done! I got the fabric for the December block early, so I sent them both out earlier this month. November was an inset circle block (the theme was we could put together any 12 inch block we wanted as long as it had circles incorporated). December was a couple Flying Geese blocks that I really liked. That one went together really quickly, the circle one I was nervous about, but it turned out.

So, besides all of that, I've done a few other things as well. I put together another Christmas table runner. This time it was for my mother-in-law. Someone told me my tutorial for it was a little confusing, so I'm planning on posting more pictures and hopefully clearer instructions for that in the coming days.

I also put together a "Kare-Package" for one of our really good friends, Sven. He's in med school with a very demanding clinical schedule and hasn't had time to cook much (or sleep for that matter). So, my husband and I put together some freezable servings of chili and I also made mini-lasagnas for him to heat up as he chooses. All in all he got 4 big bowls of chili and 6 bread loaf-sized lasagna pans to take home. He has since tried both and gave me a thumbs up on each one. The lasagna took about 35 minutes to bake, so the smaller size cut off about 1/2 of the baking time of a full-sized lasagna pan.

  I have also decorated my apartment for Christmas! We went out and cut down a tree. I celebrated a lot when it was finally cut because we had a really, really dull saw and the tree was pretty sappy. It was a small, but important victory. We have the tree all decorated now with ornaments we've collected from some of our travels and ones from our childhood. I have a couple on there that I've made as well, including the tree topper which is a star I made out of an old copy of "The Hobbit" which was falling apart. Plus, check out the beautiful tree skirt my mother gave us! It's gorgeous and was the first thing we put on the tree. :) Thanks mom!!

Lastly, I made us a little Noel sign for our living room wall. Most of the living room is adorned with pictures from our travels, but there was a weird bare spot above one of the bookshelves that I have now filled. I bout the wood cutouts at JoAnn Fabrics, painted them red with a sponge brush and added "snow" with a 1 inch bristle brush. Super easy. Then I hot glued it all together and glued on a nail hanger on the top left of the N and the bottom of the E to keep it straight and sturdy. I really like it - now if only I had something to cover up the ceiling fan switch... :) By the way, that carved thing is a nativity set we got from Portugal - we think the baby Jesus looks like a weird squid, but it was unique - and the tall candle is the unity candle from our wedding.

OK, so that's what November held for me. I'd say that gives me an A. The "extra credit" I did on my Dad's Christmas quilt can counteract the standstill on my Leaf Quilt. And with that being over, here's what's on my to-do list for December:

1) Quilt up the Christmas quilt for my dad.

2) Put together a triangle quilt for my brother-in-law and his wife. Their wedding colors were gray and yellow and they have lots of matching decor in those colors in their apartment. I have planned to put together a quilt for them and have 1/2 of the fabric cut out. I just need to buy more, cut it out, sew it together, baste it and quilt it by Christmas... Doable? We'll see!

3) Finish up my Over the Rainbow quilt. It needs a black border yet (which I have the fabric for!!), sandwiching and basting and quilting. I've decided to do an all over stippling with rainbow thread on the front and white thread on the back. The back fabric is a black and white geometric pattern that I love. I think I'll bind it up in black as well.

4) Get the rest of my Christmas presents put together. I think I have a couple knit scarves on my list and then some items that need to be purchased. I went to Target yesterday and it was crazy! I think I'm going to do all of my shopping online and have it delivered to avoid the hustle and bustle of the stores.

5) Make and send out all of our Christmas cards. I have 1/2 of them 1/2 put together already. I'm making them with old Christmas music and card stock. I'm going to keep them pretty basic, but I think they'll look nice in the end. Now I just need to get all of the addresses I need...

So, 3 quilts in December? I think I might be a little (or a lot) nuts... What are you working on this month? Happy crafting!

Think Christmas Table Runner Finished

Well, I've finally got the Think Christmas table runner all finished. I had some issues with it turning out a little pink in the wash - but after a couple cycles through it's getting back to its normal coloring. I think I'll need to wash it one more time before it goes off to its final home, but I have time to take care of that later.

I ended up hand quilting this, and I'm really glad that I did. I like the way it turned out and each section is different, yet tied together with the coordinating fabrics. I ended up using a cream colored sashing to match the blocks and a deep red binding. The back is a white holly print that my mother gifted me with the rest of my Christmas fabric stash. :) So - one more crafty goal for August down with this project finished!

I actually have another goal finished. I wanted to try some basic paper piecing. I'm going to say this counts - my first string block ever! I have a lot of thin strips from the projects I've finished lately, so I figured I'd put them to good use.

So far I've just made one block - and I made it into a pot holder that I'll give to my sister. I have plans to make some more. I'm not sure what I'll do with them all. Maybe I'll have a lot of pot holders to give away.

I used parchment paper since I don't have real foundation paper. I think it worked just fine and tore off at the end fairly well. I don't know what to compare it to though, but I was happy with the results.

The last thing I did today was put together the first of 20 blocks for the quilt I'm making for the Dots on Dots hop. So - my block design has come to life. Now I just need to put together the rest of the quilt! I think that will be on the list for my September crafty goals. I've got 2 things left for August - putting together a fall table runner for my mom and a Christmas quilt. I originally posted that I had matching blocks from the Think Christmas blog hop that I would put together into a quilt. Those blocks never got made, and I think I actually want to keep the Christmas quilt a little simpler than that. So, I'll be redesigning something for that and probably won't get the whole quilt top put together by the end of the month. We'll see though. So, for now - 2 more goals checked off the list. Woohoo!

Happy crafting!

Lots of Dots and Other Things

The Dots on Dots blog hop schedule just went up the other day, and I'm really excited for this hop. Maybe the most excited I've been for a hop, which I think is hard to beat since I've been in some great ones already - Red, White & Blue and Think Christmas! You can see the full schedule for Dots on Dots here.

I went a little dot crazy for this hop. I signed up thinking, "Oh yeah, I have a lot of polka dot fabric I can use for this!" Then, I went to my stash, and found that the pieces I had were much smaller than I thought, and I had plans to make a full dots quilt top! That just wasn't going to do it! So, alas, I had to go fabric shopping. I know - you all feel so sorry for me! :)

This is where I went a little overboard. Here's all of the dots fabric that I have now. I've managed to cut everything that I'll need for my quilt top. I'll be making 20 12 inch finished blocks and the quilt will be 4x5 blocks with borders. That's a comfortable couch lap quilt. (My husband told me the other day that he'd like a quilt to wrap up with on the couch that isn't the Super Mario quilt. He doesn't want to accidentally get something on my masterpiece. Bless his heart, but this means I need to make another quilt! - Darn!)

So, I've got the whole quilt planned out, now I just need to actually make all of the blocks and sew it all together. Designing the blocks was one of my August 2012 crafty goals, so I've got another one down - that makes 3! Woo hoo I finished more than I did in July now!

I've never done a whole quilt just out of polka dot fabric and I think this is going to be really bright and festive. I've got some dark dots and some light dots and some bright dots - all kinds of dots going into this one. So, stay tuned for that. My day is September 11th. :) 

On another topic, I decided how I was going to put together the Think Christmas table runner. Layout #1 wins with the same cream-colored sashing I used inside the blocks for fabric. The back is a red and green holly print. Once I got it all sewed together then I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it. So I asked the most un-biased quilty person I know - my husband - what I should do. I asked "machine or hand quilt?" And he responded, "Do whatever you didn't do last time." Spoken like a true non-quilter, haha. So, I'm hand quilting this runner, and it's actually going very well and is a lot of fun. The only thing I've ever hand quilted before was my door hanger quilt for the Red, White & Blue blog hop. For that I only hand stitched part of the 12 inch block. So, this is taking me a little longer to finish, but I still hope to have it done by the end of August to help out with my August 2012 crafty goal count. I'll be giving this one to my Aunt Nancy in October when we go for a little visit to Michigan. So, even if it's not done by the end of August, it will be done before Christmas this year. :)

Happy crafting!

Think Christmas! (and a giveaway...)

Hello everyone! Welcome to my stop along the Think Christmas blog hop! I'm very excited to be posting today. I wish I had one more block to share with you. I had several planned, but there's only so many hours in the day! Before I get started I'd like to thank Lesley (you can find the whole schedule at her blog) and Madame Samm for hosting and cheering on the hop. It's been great fun to see what everyone has put together so far, and I'm going to be very sad when it comes to an end. :(

But, for today, I get to share the festivities with these lovely bloggers:

Creations On The Island

Scher at That Other Blog

Sunshine Girl

Hallbrook Designs

Sisca at That Other Blog

Polkadot Classic

Ariane's Crafts

Katie's Salt Marsh Path

The Cuddle Quilter

So, have you been thinking Christmas as you've been hopping along? I definitely have been, and I think there are a few more Christmas related projects coming up for me in the next couple months because of this hop. I've already been inspired to put together a Christmas Table Runner for my Aunt-in-Law and I think there's at least one more table runner in my future!

So, without further ramblings, here are the 12.5 inch blocks I've designed for your crafty/Christmas-y inspiration:

Block #1: My version of a sunburst

Block #2: My version of a poinsettia flower

Block #3: My version of a wreath (with a Christmas star in the middle)

I think I'm going to combine all of these into a table runner for someone special that I'll be visiting later on this year. Here's a couple lay outs that I've come up with...




Layout #1

Layout #2

But, I'm curious to know how you would put these 3 blocks together, so I've got a giveaway to help me out. Just leave a comment letting me know how you'd put these blocks into a table runner. You can choose layout #1, layout #2 or tell me something completely different. Would you use sashing? Borders? Just as they are? I want to know! :)

So, what will you be winning? (**giveaway closed**)

These 3 fat quarters (red butterfly, green floral and purple geometric)...

...and this swatch of bright fish fabric (measures roughly 7 inches wide by 28 inches long)!

Please, please, please leave me your email in your comment if you are a no-reply blogger. There are always so many great comments that I can't respond to because folks are no-reply bloggers, but I'd hate for you to miss a prize too! So, if you're not sure if you're a no-reply blogger, give me your email address anyway! :) I'll draw the winner on Monday, August 6th, so your comments will count up until 11:59pm central standard time on Sunday, August 5th.

Thanks for hopping along! Be sure to check out the other bloggers today, and come back to my site in the near future to see how I put the table runner together! Feel free to follow along if you want to be kept in the loop! :)

Christmas Table Runner and Tutorial

So, I must be thinking Christmas for more than just the blog hop that's coming up. (My day is August 4th, so stop back to see what I've put together for that!) My husband's aunt Sue's birthday was today (she also happens to be my boss) so I put together a table runner for her. I used some fabric from the stash that my mom brought me, she gave me a fat quarter bundle from Nancy's Notions in some great Christmas prints. I threw in some dark green from the stash that Aunt Sue gave me and I had the perfect amount of fabric for this table runner.

I found a picture of this pattern on Google Images by searching for "table runners." You can find the link to the picture here. The post didn't come with a pattern, so I tried making one up.


Here's the runner that I'll be using in the tutorial when I talk about fabric colors and pieces. The colors I use are red, green, brown and white. I've re-written this to hopefully make it more user friendly. If you notice any mistakes or have questions, please feel free to email or comment. I'm not always perfect, but I am always happy to help!

Anyway, here's the tutorial...

Ingredients:
* 4 coordinating fabrics (a quarter yard is plenty for the white, red and green fabrics, but it's cutting it really close for the brown - I'd suggest getting 1/3 yard for the brown pattern pieces to be safe)
* batting
* fabric for the back
* binding strips (mine was cut to be 2.25 inches wide, strips sewn together on the diagonal, and pressed in half)

Directions: (final size 14 inches wide by 58 inches long)
Cut the following pieces from coordinating fabrics:
    From the red fabric cut:
    * Five 6.5 inch squares
    * Two 3.5 inch squares

    From the brown fabric cut:
    * Twelve 3.5 inch squares
    * Two 5.5 inch by 2.5 inch rectangles
    * Two 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch rectangles
    * Three 6.5 inch square - cut these in half on the diagonal to make 6 triangles
    * Six 5.5 inch by 1.5 inch rectangles

    From the white fabric cut:
    * Twelve 5.5 inch by 2.5 inch rectangles from white fabric
    * Twelve 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch rectangles from white fabric

    From the green fabric cut:
    * Two 6.5 inch squares - cut these in half on the diagonal to make 4 triangles
    * Four 5.5 inch by 1.5 inch rectangles

Sew the 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch brown rectangle cuts to 3.5 inch red squares. Then sew the 5.5 by 2.5 inch rectangle to the side of the piece you previously formed. You'll form blocks like shown in the pictures below.

Do the same thing with the 3.5 inch squares from the brown print and the small white rectangles. Press seams toward the darker fabric.

Sew each 5.5 by 1.5 brown rectangle to the top of one of the white and brown units you just created. Also sew each green 5.5 by 1.5 rectangle to the top of one of the white units. You will have two white and brown units left over with no top piece. These are used in the end rows.

Lay out the pieces so you know everything is pointing in the right direction.

Here are some pictures for a closer look at the rows:

Rows 1 and 2:

Rows 3 and 4:

Rows 5, 6 and 7:

Here's a link to a PDF that I created for the layout of the table runner. This should allow you to see the blocks/colors used in each row better than the pictures I was able to take as I was sewing. This PDF shows the table runner put together BEFORE trimming off the end pieces. So if it looks a little funny, that's how it should look! :) Christmas Table Runner Layout

Sew the pieces together into the rows as shown. You'll notice on the first and last rows that the triangle on the end is longer than the other pieces. This is OK! You'll be snipping off the excess at the end. You'll want to pin it like this:

See that the right angle of the triangle matches up with the corner of the first block you are sewing it to. You'll have the point sticking out at the top.

For the other end triangles in the middle rows you'll pin like this:

The right angle matches up with the corner and then the point will line up with the long edge of the block.

Press each strip's seams in an alternating pattern. Press the first strip's seams to the right, the second strip's seams to the left, the third strip's seams to the right, so on and so forth. This will make it easier for your blocks and points to match up when you sew the strips together.

Sew the strips together. This is a little goofy since the rows are diagonal. What you want to do is nest the seams of the red fabric pieces, like this:

First and second rows ready to pin together:

Here I have the rows slightly apart so you can see where the pieces match up. The red block will be the only matching seam on most of your rows (the first and last rows will have a couple more seams that match). This is what gives it the zig-zag effect when it's all done - all of those un-matching seams. Once you see one, you'll get the hang of it. Like you did when sewing the blocks into rows, you'll pin the end triangle right to the tip of the row it's joining. So, start pinning from the red blocks in the middle and work your way out to both ends. Then sew them together.

And here are the first two rows sewn together:

Continue until you have all of the rows sewn together. Press the seams flat however you choose to do it. I usually just press the whole thing in one direction, but if you like to press open, go for it!

Trimming up is the last thing to do now! You surely noticed that extra bit on the first and last rows:

And you also probably have some little corners sticking out along the sides from the triangle pieces: (similar to ones you get when you have to trim up half-square triangles)

Well, now we get to make it look all pretty! Take a ruler and chop off the tip of that triangle on the first and last rows. This is going to make it look just like the other side of the runner so it is balanced.

You'll do the same thing with any little corners you have sticking out on the sides. How you pressed your seams will determine how many of those little corner things you have to trim off. Just trim them flush with the side of your runner.


Layer over back fabric and batting, baste, and quilt as desired. Trim the edges and add the binding in your preferred method (I typically machine stitch it to the front and hand stitch it to the back). And now you're done!

Here are just a couple fun cat pictures to round out the post. This is my cat Sasha who has had a few shout outs in some of my other posts. She is always curious with what I'm putting together and has to be in the same room with me - always. So, here she is relaxing on my lap while I'm hand stitching the binding on the runner, and the other picture is a shot of her in her favorite place to hang out while I'm stitching on the machine. Sometimes it amazes me that I get anything done with her always underfoot! :) Happy crafting everyone.