I absolutely HEART Sandy Gervais! I have hoarded collected many of her fall fabric lines—Fall Back in Time, Pumpkins Gone Wild, and Awesome--and Grand Finale is no exception. I bought two charm packs this past summer, and when I found out I’d be hosting Thanksgiving this year, got them out and got busy!
With three little ones at every meal, tablecloths are definitely out. I wanted to make something a little fancier and more substantial than a tablerunner, so I came up with the idea of making a largish table topper that could be used for the Thanksgiving meal. In fact, I added Insul-Bright to the batting to make it heat resistant, so many of the fixins can be served straight to the table.
After making the quilt sandwich, I asked my husband if I should do straight line or squiggle quilting. He opted for squiggles. I am kind of glad he did. Sometimes I don’t have the self-control patience to keep my lines evenly spaced and neat. Now that my squiggles are getting better, I prefer free motion quilting to straight lines. I used green thread and love how it really “pops” against the purple.
The Insul-Bright makes the quilt sandwich a tad thicker than just the Warm & White, so I increased my binding from 2.5 inches to 2.75 inches. That little increase seemed to work perfectly for machine binding. All in all, this tabletopper required almost 2 charm packs, 1 yard for backing, and 1/4 yard for binding.
Jamie, this runner looks so good. Love all the HSTs. I really feel inspired after seeing your table runners to work on some myself. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis table runner looks so festive and bright, how clever to make it heatproof!
ReplyDeleteI start to believe that it´s nice to have all those traditions like haloween, thanksgiving and St. Valentine´s day that are considered rather uncommon here. There is always sth to plan, decorate (and sew!) for in between those rather dull month October until February. We also have Christmas and New Year´s eve but besides that it´s just a snowy/foggy period until carneval and finally easter arrives. ;-)
I just love Sandi Gervais' fabrics too. And I love your zig-zag table mat. I did the same thing I couple years ago, made a mat and used insul-brite. What can I say - but our great minds think alike! LOL!!
ReplyDeleteOops forgot to say - I love your quilting too. The squiggles look just right on it!!
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