Inlaid Table Runner Project Quilted!

I still haven't tackled the Mitered border table runner, but this one I finished up this week.

I have a semi large table. But the pattern for this and the other table runner make my table seem very small.  I decided to take the extra squares and make place mats.  But, when I went to make the borders, I found that it would still make this WAY TO WIDE.  I put just one small border on the table runner, and no borders on the place mats.

I used one of the patterns from my quilt samples, and quilted at home on my machine! lol. This is the first one to tackle on my own machine, as I have been renting the long arm machines at the quilt shop.

I marked with a green pencil marker.

And, did the place mats first, gaining momentum and encouragement. I quilted first through the center going both directions.  I used my tack gun and didn't have any trouble with puckering.

So, I moved on to the table runner.  I feel like this is as big as I would like to manage under the small throat space of my machine.  It worked fine, And, I marked just like the smaller place mats and quilted the same way.

When I attached the binding, I cut it a bit smaller, figuring a 1 1/4" would be plenty. However, I didn't account for that 1/4" very well.  First, it made a big difference when attaching the strips together.  This allows for only 1/8" seam allowance, and , well, have you tried to get diagonals to go straight with only 1/8"??  The worst part was when I sewed them onto the place mats, I didn't remember 1/8", but used the usual 1/4" and this is what happened.

Can you even see the edge of the binding?  ha. very little.  No way was it going to wrap around the sandwich and let me sew to the back.  I got out my familiar seam ripper, and had to remove all three bindings from placemats!  Luckily, I hadn't done the table runner yet.

Lesson learned?  Use the guides in the book! Adjust the seam allowance when you adjust the size of the binding strips!

I'm so happy to have finished this project. I had started it back in the Spring of prior, thinking these fabrics would be happy spring/summer colors.  THIS spring/summer it will be on my table!