Christmas Table Runner Finished!

The other day I was working on a table runner for our LQG Christmas meeting.  I had always wanted to do a quilt project using the tumblers block shape. 

There are several if not a dozen or so different rulers for this.  If you don't like any of those already out there, you can make a template pretty easily by drawing a rectangle and angling one of the sides.  Then you 'mirror image' that shape.

I have a couple of rulers.  I bought the Easy Dresden so many years ago I don't even remember when... that's the one I used for my table runner.

I also bought The Crumbler from Miss Rosie's Quilt Company last year.  That was before Carrie Nelson closed down her shop and went to work for Moda.  But you can still get the Crumbler and the other tiny version on Amazon.

 So using my bin of 2 1/2 inch strips, I cut up a lot of Christmas colors and filled the bottom of a bin.

 

I sat down in the kitchen with the Princess's Baby Lock and started randomly stitching pieces into pairs, and then pairs into quads, etc.  Because these pieces are so small (I mean, you can see how skinny they are!! The finished 'fat' end is only an inch wide!), I pressed the seams open. 

 

Well, yes, I did press eventually, but for most of the process I used my Little Wooden Iron.  Those little bits of lumber are awesome!!

 

I use my Little Wooden Iron all the time for small seams until I can take a big batch over to the ironing board.



The seams on the lower one were pressed down with the LWI, the top ones were pressed with the Big Metal and Plastic Iron.

Once I had fours I laid them out on my table and tried to figure out how big the table runner would be.  I had about a quarter of my table covered in width, so that was about 26-28 inches.  Of course there are a million seams to something when there are this many pieces, so it turned out much smaller.

Then I sewed them into rows, and pressed again, then sewed the rows to each other.  The edges were of course wonky because of the shape of the pieces.  If you're working with larger pieces it might be OK to precut the end pieces in half, but for these, no way.

 

After a final press I simply cut off the wonky edges with a long ruler, squaring them up to the straighter long edges.

I found a piece of batting that was just the right size, and a nice red and green print for the back.  With the application of a striped binding and a little channel quilting between the rows, it was done!

It ended up approximately 14 1/2 inches by 20 inches. I like how it turned out.  It was a fun little project.  I hope whoever wins it at the LCQG holiday party enjoys it.

Sew on...