Strictly Quilting – but we may end up wherever our needles take us!
As we are in lockdown at the moment and, finding I have plenty of spare time on my hands, I thought I would tackle some of my scraps. I keep far too much from tiny triangles snipped from making Half Square Triangles to narrow strips. (Yes, I also admit to keeping selvedges too!) It’s about time I used some up. I’ve been meaning to make a little runner for my kitchen Welsh dresser, which has heart cut outs and so inspired this simple, but so cute, Hearts Runner.
The hearts had inspired the design but I did want it to be a quick make so I searched up different patterns with hearts. There are so many out there but I settled on the Dancing Valentines block, partly because it gave me plenty of hearts but on a smaller scale which is perfect for using some of my scraps. I even used some lovely red shot taffeta on some of them…
It really was a quick make until it came to the quilting! Some projects just don’t go well do they? This fell into that category. I love using smaller projects to practice my Free Motion Quilting and I decided that a variegated pink thread would work really well with a swirly line with some hearts in the centre cream square of the blocks. You know when you start something and begin to think you don’t really like it? Yep, that’s what happened but I thought, just carry on. When I had nearly finished one side I realised that I’d caught some of the backing! It had folded under without me realising. At least I could change from the pink! I unpicked the lot and started again with a cream and a gentle meandering pattern. Much better until the thread broke! I rethreaded and started again only to find, a while later, that the thread was not playing ball and I had huge ‘eyelashes’ all over the back! Jack the Ripper made another appearance and finally I finished!
I am really pleased with it, the meandering quilting across the cream certainly helps the hearts to ‘pop’. A clever trick when quilting. This would make a lovely gift and would be wonderful for a romantic meal.
The pdf is free to download here:
Until next time and don’t forget – Keep Calm and Quilt On!
Strictly Quilting 