Pumpkins and Leaves

A new Fall runner for me.

My quilt guild handed out patterns for the pumpkins as our block of the month.  Please don’t tell my guild, but I liked these blocks so much that I kept them for myself.  It took me another month to decide what to put with them and how.

I finally decided on these paper pieced leaves.  Pattern by Full Bobbin Designs, on Etsy.   I adjusted the pattern very slightly.  Just to break up the larger leaf sections on each side.  I think they still need a little more division...next time.

It was a toss up on which way the outside leaves should face.  Facing inward won out.



Also a question of whether the pumpkins faced the same direction or opposite directions.  Opposite directions won out since where it is placed has entryways on both sides of the island.

Something most likely will always be placed in the center of the runner, so the pumpkins are divided in that way.

The moral of this quilting adventure is that I’m glad I was selfish and kept these pumpkin blocks for myself.  

Patriotic Sewing

It has been a week of patriotic sewing.

The theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art is using the first letter of your name.

Annie - A

Since I was already working on a patriotic piece, America came to mind immediately.  I’ve stitched a postcard of our American symbol, our Flag.

This small 12” X 12” craft storage box contains odd sewn pieces or blocks.  It is all that remains of unfinished items.  I’m keeping these pieces in mind, waiting for inspiration to sew them into something...other than potholders.

These three paper pieced blocks were in that box.  I think they were originally intended to be potholders.  But now, years later, I’ve changed my mind.



I decided that they would become a table runner.  I have had zero patriotic home decor items and it is time that I did.

I went through my stash of blue fabrics hoping for a piece that would blend well enough to put these blocks together.  I got lucky.

Then I went through my stash of red fabrics hoping for a binding piece.  I got lucky again.  I really love how the staggered stars in the fabric show up at odd intervals when used for a binding.



I normally mail the postcards I make, but I’ll keep this one for decor.

Paper Pieced Table Runner

From Turid’s blog  I learned about  Leila Gardunia’s  free paper piecing scrappy triangles.  I downloaded them and printed them.  They come as a 6” block but I shrunk them down to 4.5” blocks.

I had a limited amount of the the gray fabric so I made blocks until I ran out of it.  

That gave me only 20 blocks.

From sloppy to nice and neat.

It’s a good thing I used a minimum amount of fabrics.   I can get pretty messy when I’m paper piecing.

There weren’t enough to make them into the design I was hoping to use so I worked on alternative layouts.

I decided on blocks of 4 blocks.

I quilted it with too many rows of quilting.  I don’t care for tight quilting lines.  I think they make the piece too stiff.  I removed 2 rows of quilting in each direction.

Much better.  You can still see where I removed quilting lines until it hits the washer.  Then the needle holes will disappear.

The table runner measures 49”x15”

Now that I’ve had that practice I am going to make them at full size for a Christmas quilt in the design I had planned to begin with.

My August calendar journal

Many, many awesomely fun days of sewing last month.

I forgot to cover the personal stuff...Mom is doing fine.

I have to write blog posts with Blog Touch to write them on my iPad.  The app crashes often while writing and adding photos.  Every time it crashes I have to edit the post and then it puts “(Temporary Backup)” in front of my post title.  It does that every time it crashes.  So if you see that, this is why you see it.  I have to edit the title in Blogger dashboard.  Jeezelouise, the hoops we have to jump through sometimes!

Hearts Runner and Potholders

I have not been sewing much lately.  This is a table runner and potholders I made a lot of years ago.
Before my days of blogging.

I dug these out of their long sleep in storage.  After all, it’s the month of hearts now.

Things that have been in storage a long time are like new again.