The Magic of Quilting: Summer Table Runners- Trellis Pattern and Beach Calypso

Trellis Pattern

In the summer I usually don't get a lot of quilting done. I have a huge yard with 8 flower beds, a 10 foot greenhouse and a veggie garden as well to plant and maintain.
I realized the other day, that most of my place mats and all of my table runners are either fall or Hallowe'en or Christmas patterns. Not one summer table runner! And only one set of seven spring placemats (with appliquéd tulips on them.) What an oversight!

I had ordered some summery fabrics a few months back and one rainy day recently, I decided it was time to dig it out. I already had a pattern in mind called "Trellis" which I had found in the Quilters World spring 2015 magazine a few months back. The main fabric for this project, is a summery floral print in pink, turquoise, lime greens and white. The accent fabrics are solid turquoise and a green tiny bubbles fabric (left overs from my "paint chip challenge"which I made a year ago).

Time to get started! I washed, and pressed the fabric and started cutting squares and creating blocks.

I cut 6 1/2 inch squares from the floral fabric. Then I cut the 2 accent fabrics (solid turquoise and a green on green bubble fabric) into 4 1/2 inch squares. The accent fabrics are sewn on opposite corners of the floral square. The excess fabric on the corners get cut off a 1/4 inch from the seam line.

The blocks are arranged "on the point" with half squares at the top and bottom to fill in the spaces.

Half squares were cut crossways for the ends. I put a number label on each diagonal row and then started sewing them together.

Auditioning the possible border fabrics.

Once the blocks were all together I auditioned some of my fabrics for the inner and outer borders. I took photos of each option but I decided to go with the white and green swirly fabrics. I really like the turquoise and green idea above as well.

After sewing on the borders, I decided the green swirl fabric was too wide so I chopped of an inch all around and also cut a 1/4 inch of the white.

Next I sewed the back fabric together and cut a piece of batting the same size. I decided to 'sandwich" the front and the back, not make a binding around the edge. I safety pinned the batting to the back side of the runner top, then lay the back fabric on top of the runner with the right sides facing and sewed all 3 things together leaving a 5 inch opening to turn everything right side out.

Swirly green on green back fabric

As luck would have it, I had to flip it wrong side out again and resew the 2 ends because the runner top wasn't sewn onto the back quite right. After a bit of seam ripping and re-sewing it looked good. Next I slip stitched closed the 5 inch opening by hand. I pressed the whole runner and then I sewed a 1/4 inch seam all around the outside after that.

Last I sewed "in the ditch" along the diagonal seams to hold the batting in place. Voila, it was done!

Now I'm working on making some place mats out of the left overs. We'll see how that turns out! ;)

Lantern Blocks/ Beach Calypso 45" X 22"

My friend B's birthday sneaked up on me this year! We had invited B and her husband out to our place for an early birthday celebration and I decided I wanted to make her a summer table runner for her birthday. The main colour is a peridot solid green fabric. The other fabrics were Balis from another project.

I found this easy design in Quilter's World Summer 2015 magazine which takes simple 2 1/2 inch strips to create the lantern blocks. The pattern is on page 52 is called Simple Calypso. I really like how it turned out! I think I might (eventually) make one for myself, too. :)