170:Lesson 4 Project

Carrie's Inlaid Tile Table Runner

I had plenty of time to catch up on all sorts of other things while my machine was away. I read most of my 4th ed. Harriet Hargrave's Heirloom Machine Quilting. I'm taking notes and highlighting and am hoping I've got myself prepared to finish up these projects I've been working on.

And, I spent time attaching #1 nickle plated steel curved safety pins into these handy Quilter's Delight pin covers.

I was able to purchase the pins at Wal-Mart. The pin covers and the Kwik Klips tool I purchased at Joann's with 50% coupons. I think it took well over an hour to attach all these. I believe I have about 300 pins here and hope that will baste any project I've got plans for quilting.

But, on Friday my sewing machine called to me, "Let's sew!"  After taking last week off I was anxious to get back to my next quilt project that I was ready to start. 

This is the Table Runner as pictured:

We're learning combined grids with this quilt. Combined grids simply means that some pieces are not the same size as others. We had strips to sew together and some strips were 1 3/4" and some were 3".

I wanted to stick as close as possible to the color scheme as the layout given. It just makes it alot easier when following the instructions and the color coding in the book.
Here are my fabric selections:

First shown on left will be the border print. I could not find any "border" print suitable. Then, my yellow, green, light blue and dark blue. All are from Kate of Spain line. The bright colors just make me happy. I picture them on my kitchen table and smile.

 

Here are my strips sewn.  And, here I have to tell you my happiness. I have a new needle in my machine, and new thread on top and in my bobbin.  The thread is pewter and it blends wonderfully. But, that isn't all.  It is NOT making a mess in my bobbin case and there is no lint by my needle either.  I was using Signature 50/3 and matching pre-wound bobbin and I had a mess that I was regularly having to clean off. This new Presencia Thread is wonderful. It is 60/3 mercerized cotton, imported from Spain, so it is thinner.

Which means that when I measured after sewing and pressing, my seams to outer edge were over the line a smidge rather than on the short side! So, I ordered more thread. I'm convinced it is worth the extra couple of dollars per cone. However, after adding a couple different colors to my cart at Harriet's Treadle, I found that the shipping was based on $ rather than weight or what could fit in a priority shipping box. So, I googled and found Presencia Thread here.  And, their shipping was a flat $4.95.  Sorry Harriet.  Didn't figure I wanted to pay $19 shipping when I could get more thread for that.

All strips get cut at the same 1 3/4". This time I cut my entire strips rather than only the specified number required. I will plan to use them for placemats or practice squares in the quilting process. I realized after the last project that I've got partial strips from all my projects and wonder why I didn't make extra squares.  Scrap strip sets are just odd.

The first two sewn together are the middles of the block because they have the most seams. I fanned the seams where intersections met.

And, this is what I got after attaching the first row to the previous 2. All chained together ready to press. I realized though, that this is the first time we have pressed a seam OPEN. In all our other piecing, we have pressed all seams to one side or fanned the intersections. 

My process had to change for this, and I think we probably could have used a little explaination as to how to press a seam open. Now, that may sound a little obvious to some, but really, how to you get the seam on the front to lay flat if you are not using the iron to guide along the 1/4" seams on the back?  I decided to lay the pieces back side up, use my finger to finger press the seams open, then press that side, then turn them over and press flat. Then, starch.  Please comment below if you have a preferred way of pressing open seams.

Each time I add a strip to the block I recheck my measurements to be sure I'm still accurate.
After adding 4th strip to block I came up with this.

Seam side: outside rows are pressed open and the middle seam is pressed to one side with fan at the intersection. 

Now, reading the directions for assembly, I find a picture of a 6x6 layout!  My first questions was, "WHAT?" that's not a Table Runner!  Then as I read, I see that we are given an option as to how we want to assemble this one.  So, here are my choices:

This is the table runner layout.  Blocks in 3x10 layout, with left overs for place-mats?  This ends up about 50" long where as the layout suggestion is 60". I don's care for my table runner to be that long, as it would fall over the edges of my table.  My dilemma is the place-mats are square and I'm not sure they would look right after an equal sided border added? What would you do with the place-mats? Maybe have only 2 and have another row?

Then here is another layout choice:

Another lap quilt. I like the inlaid tile design, but I think I was looking forward to something fun and nice on my table.

Feel free to leave your comments!
Happy Days,
Dawn