This year has been one full of events from the end of Covid restrictions to the beginning of the Ukraine conflict. Both of these have had an impact on my life, meaning I haven’t done as much blogging as I’d have liked. I am in need of a celebration and the Queens Platinum Jubilee is certainly one to break out the bubbly for.
70 Years on the throne. What an achievement and we are hoping to hold an afternoon tea, albeit in the caravan. Is this where I show my age – I remember the Silver Jubilee, taking part in the fancy dress competition in an outfit my mother made. (I dressed as Britannia but the witch won – I was robbed!) To brighten the table I just couldn’t resist creating a Jubilee Table Runner which is quick and easy for those with a little experience but still easy enough to run up for beginners.
Lewis and Irene have brought out the perfect fabric with their Jubilee collection and I had been given a fabulous collection of Gütermann Threads. They are 30 wgt., thicker than I usually use, 100% cotton and in a lovely range of colours. When looking around my sewing room I realised there were the perfect trio of colours in the pack – red, white and blue.
You can download the free pattern in pdf form if you would like to make the runner and the fabrics are available from many of our Local Quilt Shops. You could go for the traditional red, white and blue mixture but I have also made this runner in a smaller size for my coffee table using a pretty spring charm pack.
Jacob’s Ladder is the block used in the runner. A traditional block with its roots in the Pioneering age of America where many blocks gained their name from the one book which was commonly taken on the waggon trips across the many thousands of miles – the Bible. It is also known under other names such as Stepping Stones or Road to California. Apt for the journeys these people made.
I used the Gütermann threads to piece the blocks and it went together smoothly with no excess lint, gave a neat finish and sank into the fabric nicely when pressed. All these features help to give a perfect finish to your piecing. Having a pack such as this was perfect as sometimes you want to make a project quickly and being able to dip into a thread collection for just the right colour is brilliant.
The packs contain 12 reels in a variety of popular colours including the very useful white and black, dark and mid blue, red, cream, gold, mid and dark brown, mid and dark green and a grey. There are 300m per reel and these threads can be used for many applications. Gütermann threads are one of my go too ones. Reliable, good quality, I never have a problem with them. Coupled with the fact they are reasonable priced I do keep them in for most projects from dressmaking to quilting.
I decided to use some of these to complete the quilting on the borders, the darker blue for the narrow border and the red for the outer border. As I was practicing my Free Motion Quilting I decided to go for a thread which wouldn’t be seen quite so much on the main blocks as I wanted the fabrics and their wonderful patterns to shine through.
If you would like to download the free pdf pattern you can do so here:
The Gütermann Creativ value packs can be found in all good retailers.
Strictly Quilting 