Making lemonade... or a table runner.

Was it just yesterday I was having a whinge about not loving my starflower blocks? What a difference 24 hours can make! As soon as I was posted that blog post, I got stuck into sewing and made up the rest of those HSTs into starflower blocks. I had three blocks. Had a bright idea to make it into a cot quilt with string blocks down the sides to give it more size. String blocks did not work out quite as planned so decided to cut my losses! Here's what I ended up with:

And because I didn't want to waste a few hours of cutting, sewing and ironing, this table runner has a pieced back!

Oh and if you've a keen eye, you may have noticed a bit of 'real' quilting on that table runner. Yes indeed, I broke out the darning foot and tried some FMQ! Practiced for all of 5 minutes on a piece of felt and decided to jump in the deep end!

Each starflower has a different type of quilting around it. Not for any design feature but simply because I was having fun and wanted to try out different things!

I started with a little flower and leaf motif. Which I did on way too small a scale so it just looks like stippling,but I'm okay with that because you can't notice exactly how messy my flowers are.

Next I thought why bother with flowers and leaves, let's just go with stippling! So I did and I actually preferred it. I didn't have to think as much. Again, rather small scale, I think I should have done it a bit bigger but that's okay, I'm happy with it.

For the third block I thought let's try something different again! Echo quilting with straight lines. Oooh fun! Loved this one and I love the final look of it.

I also FMQ'd a flower in the centre of each star. At first my flower lines were a bit wonky but know what I figured out? The hesitancy and worry I'd get it wrong made me get it wrong! When I relaxed and just went for it with a bit of confidence (even fake confidence!) my lines were steady and turned out okay.

I also totally cheated and only did the quilting with the quilt top and batting, then later added the backing in my signature pillowcase flip-a-roo finish.

I'm quite pleased with it and it brightens up my very boring dining table. Seriously, there is nothing on my dining table. Not even a table cloth. That's because I have two children (who may be half monkey) who like to dance on the table. Yes, dance. Apparently it's hilarious. So let's see how long this will last on there.

Oh and I still didn't do a binding. Because I didn't want to. And I didn't have enough rainbow scraps for a cool rainbow scrappy border. And because I didn't want to. Hey I FMQ'd - that's enough achieving for one day!