Tornado Alley

This week's theme for the  Quilt Gallery contest is Tablerunners and I submitted one of my favorites. 

In 2006 my friend, Cynthia, from Iowa Star Quilts offered a free tablerunner pattern every month. I'm lucky to be a pattern tester for her. She called her April pattern "Storm Signal" but since I live in Kansas now, I called mine "Tornado Alley". 

I quilted it with silver metallic thread (Glitter from Superior Threads). Click on the picture to enlarge even more

You can see all 12 of my runners here

You can order a book with all 12 patterns and pictures of both Cynthia and my runners here

If you'd like to vote for my runner you can do so here

Thank you to those who do.  If you see another you like better, vote for it instead or in addition to mine.  You can vote for up to four entries.

Double Wedding Ring

For the last couple of days I've been quilting on a little table topper that I made about 3 or 4 years ago. It was made using the Quilt Smart fusible interfacing. At the time I bought the kit I was sure I'd never be able to piece a double wedding ring any other way. Then I hand pieced my Diamond Ring and discovered that the curved piecing really wasn't that hard.

At any rate, I decided this little piece had been waiting long enough so I started quilting it Thursday. At the time I took these pictures I hadn't removed the blue markings on the center motifs..so if you see blue, that is why. It's about 30 X 40".

And it's raining again this morning! Awwwgggrrrrhhhhh!

Finished

I've been posting a lot of non-quilt related things..but I've been quilting and sewing right along. Remember the 10 tablerunners I pieced last week? Well they are now all quilted and bound with only three or four still needing labeled so I can truly say all 10 are complete. What am I going to do with them all? Not entirely sure..mostly presents no doubt...we'll see. It feels good to have used nearly 15 yds of stash. In the past I probably would have thought "more room for NEW fabric". But given the economy and what's happening to retirement accounts, I'm going to seriously try to get through another year in which I primarily use from my stash and limit the fabric buying to the three "B's". .. backing, background and borders. Actually I've done really well the last couple of years. And it's rather a fun challenge to let your stash speak to you.


So here are the runners. Most are quilted with metallic threads.

And I made four colorful pillowcases yesterday and today.

Now that's not too bad for a week and a half, is it?

ABC'S

No, I'm not returning to school..nonetheless it's been a day of ABC's.

I started off the morning making yet another table runner..this one with Apples...

Finished a sample Block for our guild's 2009 BOM..this one will be January's ...Bees in the Barnyard



Even though we're having pretty much a deli supper since it's only Tom and I, we had to have homemade Bread....so I made Butter Semmels and formed half the dough into Crescents.

And I discovered this morning that the reason our grandson hadn't received the cookies I shipped him on November 8, just might be because this senile grandmother sent the box to his old Iraqi address instead of Afghanistan. When I printed the online shipping label I cut and pasted from my OE address book, which had never been changed after he returned from Iraq a year and a half ago ....duh.............So that would explain why they haven't made it to Afghanistan.


Nothing I could do now except spend the afternoon Baking more Cookies......

Second Production Run

Day two making table runners and I pieced five more. That's nine runners in two days and about 15 yds used from my stash....not a bad deal except the shelves don't look any emptier. How can that be?

Production Line

Got a lot accomplished this afternoon..four tablerunners pieced. It's such a simple pattern.. one I found here . You can easily piece a runner in an hour or less. Now to get them all quilted and bound.