Sideline Project

So while on my cooking jag I also had a bee in my bonnet about a sewing project that has been on the back burner for a while.

I had purchased two bundles of 5 inch charm squares at one of the craft/quilting shows a couple of years ago.  I had intended making myself a tablecloth with them, and had even designed the layout. I went back to it every so often, and each time I grew dissatisfied with the design.

Now at work we have a large board room with large table, which is where we tend to have our morning coffee. It's a routine to help us bond and catch up before we all start to work in earnest. We have been using folded up tablecloths that really don't fit the table, and I was also getting dissatisfied with that too.

I had recently been to the Australasian Quilting Convention here in Melbourne, and bought a little ruler that is a straight 1/2 inch.  It is used to help with making half triangle squares.  I'm sure that's not the technical term, but it's what I am going with.

I had decided to make a table runner for the office.  It was to sit across the end of the table in the boardroom.  I took my measuring tape in and made sure I had enough of what I needed at home to start it off.  So I re-sorted the charm squares and made a lot of half triangle squares.  I then decided that I would boarder or sash them with plain calico.

I checked my measurements and found I was too short, so I added some more charms.  This time however, I had sewn two half triangle squares together and cut them up so that they made a 4 triangle charm square.  I was truly proud of myself, because this was the first time I had sewn triangle squares. To keep consistent I actually matched the spacing of the other charm squares, and sashed these with calico as well.

I then joined the two end pieces with the main body.

Next came the boarder, again it was calico strips, which were 2.5 inches wide.

I did have to go and square all the half and quarter triangle charms to 4 inches square before I started to piece this all together.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to sandwich the top with a baking fabric and some wadding, or just the backing fabric.  In the end I went with just the backing fabric. Only problem was, I didn't have anything that was really suitable. So off to Spotlight I went for some cheap brownish cotton!  Luckily they had a number of quilting fabrics on sale, and I ended up with some pretty funky backing fabric.  I decided to bind the runner with a plain chocolate brown cotton, as that fit in the with the top and the backing. I ditch stitched to sandwich the two pieces together.  I then decided that the plain boarder needed something a little extra, so I used a variegated brown silky cotton and sewed 1/4 inch lines inside the binding, and that was all the quilting I did.

So below is the finished product, front and a sample of the backing too.  I am proud that I was able to match all seams and that everything in in line! Not too bad for my second free style quilting project!

Sample of the backing material.