Round Robin # 6 - Spring Table Runner

Now this is how I envisioned our Round Robin would go!  Jane created a lovely basket of flowers as the start of her Round Robin project.  The large flower in the center is a yo-yo! Jane's project book said she wanted a spring table runner.  

Each subsequent person followed her lead by doing an applique with a spring theme.  And each managed to include a little bit of their themselves in their block.  All of them are beautiful hand appliqued pieces!  

When I originally joined this small band of quilters I was in awe of their skilled handy work.  I loved what they were doing but as a brand new quilter I didn't think I'd ever get to their level.  Slowly over the years I've had lots of opportunities to learn from all of them.  I now feel confident enough to tackle simple hand applique work and some day hope to hand quilt something of my own.

Of course Dutchy was the one who introduced me to quilting and taught me all about using the rotary cutter.  Including a lesson we BOTH learned about keeping your hands away from the blade!  Red work is another talent she's shown me.  She has several groups of beautiful red work (and blue work!) blocks she's done that I hope will some day get into several quilts.

For Jane's table runner Dutchy had this cute idea for using hexies as the flowers in her block.  She added a button in the middle of each one.  

Carol's block includes some embroidered stems and buttons to embellish the centers of the flowers.  Carol's hand embroidery is beautiful and this is just a little example of it.  Each month I look forward to seeing her progress on the "State Flowers" she's doing.  She and Jane are both doing the state flower blocks and it's fun to see the different ideas for colors and techniques they are using.

Tami's our expert applique artist.  She's good and she's fast!  She's helped me with becoming brave enough to try my own applique projects.  The first one I did was on the Twiggy quilt I made for a wedding present.  She taught me how to use the English paper piecing method.  It wasn't the first applique method I tried but it's was the first that actually looked good when I was done!

Charlene's block was the same one she used in her own Round Robin project bringing the project together in a unique way.  The bird and egg definitely signify spring.  As a quilting teacher Charlene has provided all of us with tips, tricks, and techniques for piecing all kinds of project through her classes.  Having her as part of our small group gives us a chance to pick her brain once a month!  She's a talented quilter and a genius with scraps! 

Deb R.'s block is her signature bee and bees-keep.  It's something she likes to include in her quilting and we've all come to recognize it.  The name Deborah means "bee" and Deb is certainly the embodiment of a busy bee.  She's great at so many things from refinishing furniture, quilting, and cooking, to Tree House building!  She typicality has half a dozen project in several mediums going at the same time.  Her energy is contagious and her creativity inspiring.

With all these talented, creative people making these beautiful blocks I just knew I had to put them all together so Jane would have a finished table runner.  For my addition I chose to do the sashing and borders.  The colors for all of the blocks were just lovely.  Each one had a bit of golden yellow and some blue.

I found these two great fabrics in my stash.  Although the blue initially seemed dark to me it had that pretty little golden yellow flower that worked beautifully with the golden sashing I picked.

With all the blocks up on my design wall I was able to come up with several layouts.  I really struggled with doing a long narrow table runner or a rectangular one.  I was concerned that if I did them all in a row it might not fit on Jane's table. Even now I question my choice.  This layout seemed to be balanced and light  but maybe a single row was what she really wanted.  Which order would you have put them in?

Here's Jane with her finished Spring Table Runner.  She really liked it and I hope she'll use it.  I gave her the rest of the blue fabric and I told her I would not be hurt if she changed it to the long single row of blocks.  I don't think you can go wrong with such pretty blocks!

Next up will be my Round Robin project, #7 and that last of the series.  I hope you'll come back and check it out!

Marian's UFO's

Have you ever tried to work on a UFO (Un-Finished Objects) that someone else has started?  It's tough enough trying to finish up my own unfinished projects but to take something that someone else has started and try to finish it is really a challenge.  It's not something I've done much of and I can tell you after this experience I won't be doing any more any time soon! 

A while ago my sister and several of the girls in her Monday quilt group lost one of their regular members.  When Marian's family got around to cleaning out her house they had no idea what to do with all her crafting/sewing stuff.  I had never been to Marian's craft room but had heard stories of how lovely it was and how much stuff was in it.  She was involved in quilting, knitting, rubber stamping, and other crafts/hobbies.  So much so that her husband had a craft room built to hold all her stuff.  I often heard the girls talking about going to Marian's to enjoy group sewing or other projects.

After the family had taken the items they were interested in, Marion's husband invited the "Monday night group" to come over to the house and help themselves to whatever they wanted.  Each of the girls had received so much stuff that I understand it took them several visits to clean the whole room out.  While I didn't participate in the clean up I was lucky enough to receive several kits and a selection of fabrics from the stuff my sister Dutchy had received.  In fact it was a whole storage tub full of stuff!

 

The fabrics are beautiful!  And there were lots of kits of all different types and sizes of projects.  I selected several of the smaller table runners and place mats thinking they would work up quickly.  I hadn't touched anything in the that tub until last winter and what a surprise!

Occasionally one of the girls in my Friday group will mention that they had picked up one of Marion's projects to finish.  The comments were always the same;  poor Marian, she must have used some of the fabric from the kit on another project; or isn't this one of the patterns we did in class, it seems to be missing some pieces; or I tried to finish this project but the pieces are cut wrong. 

You see, Marian was in it for the fun not the finesse!  She had enough money to buy whatever she wanted, and her husband indulged her, so she often had two or three (or more!) of the same kit or piece of fabric.  She's buy several yards of fabric at the quilt shop then come in the following week and buy more of the same!  We all chuckled because we all wish we could do that!

So when I finally got around to tackling some of those UFOs from Marian I saw for myself that all the comments from the girls were true.  The first project was the Pumpkin Patch table runner - it was missing some of the beige background fabric so I substituted with one from my stash.

Next I tried the Bunny table runner.  This one wasn't missing anything.  In fact it had enough fabric to make SIX table runners!  LOL  I guess she was planning on giving these away.  She had completed four of the bunny faces and cut some of the other pieces but not all of them.  I decided to finish just two of them and put the rest of the fabric in my stash for another project.

And lastly I tackled the Christmas place mats. These were a puzzle.  She had the triangles cut but I'm not sure what pattern she was following!  And since they were cut on the bias, well, lets just say they were a bit "wonky"!  Again I substituted the red for some fabric I had in my stash and I think they came out pretty good.

I spent about two weekends working on these projects and when all was said and done I enjoyed the challenge and spent some time fondly remembering a quilting friend!  I have to admit I only completed the piecing on the 3 table runners and 2 place mats.  I decided that the next steps, quilting and binding, would have to be done by someone else so I returned them to my sister.  I'm not sure if she's done anything with them but now she can have some fun and fond memories of Marian too.