Autumn Table Runner

 I survived matchstick quilting.

 Surfing the internet, I stumbled across Cynthia Frenette's blog and she had a free pattern for a table runner. She used matchstick quilting - that's just quilting lines about a 1/4" apart, mostly parallel with a curvy twist at the end of the table runner.

It was very pretty.
It seemed simple enough....

 It only took all day Sunday.

After about 30 parallel lines, I was ready to free motion quilt (FMQ) this piece. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's how FMQ got started. Some dorky sewist trying to think she can quilt, realizing very quick she hates quilting repetitious lines that never end. She veered off the 'pattern' and started free-wheeling that sewing machine like nobody's business.

I used scraps and stash for this table runner. Most of the low-volume background is from Sweetwater's Road 15 fabrics. See? A tiny bit of quilting and I start spouting out quilting lingo: Low volume!

For this table runner to work, the background colors are all low-key, light, neutral. The berries and the leaves are almost primary loud colors.

 This measures up about 40" long x 10" wide.

The background colors are all pieced together with the berries and leaves ironed on top with wonder-under (fusible web). The matchstick quilting is helping to keep those small pieces attached. Cynthia had you start with parallel lines of quilting and then veer off in a curve towards the end - following the lovely stem curve. The entire table runner is bound with bias tape ( I cut mine straight).


Even though this took all day to sew - with many breaks to keep my sanity - this was an easy sew.   A very pretty sew for Autumn.

 I can now tick matchstick quilting off my bucket list.

{ I  dislike quilting.}