Saturday 29 November 2008

Lines and Spaces























Here's a fun table runner project, quick and easy enough to still finish in time for Christmas.

Find some Christmas fabric that you may already have in your stash. Fabric with a prominent motif, as in the picture, works well. You'll need about a half yard or even a bit less. Use a rotary cutter to get it to a useful size, one that fits on your table, dresser or sideboard. Then add a contrasting border. This project is small enough to work well on or off a frame.

Choose one of the flatter needle punched waddings and a backing fabric. I like to use a patterned backing fabric because it hides any mistakes. For the quilting, I've chosen a top thread that blends in with the background fabric. Here I've used a thread from the So Fine! range of Superior Threads #434 Misty Blue. For the bobbin, I used a BottomLine thread that disappeared into the backing.

As you can see, the quilting design is a simple free-motion combination of loops and squiggles. I've imitated the wire hangers of the wooden ornaments on the fabric. My only aim was to miss the motifs. In machine quilting the unquilted spaces are every bit as important as the quilted ones. Quilting around the 'images' on the fabric makes the un-quilted spaces pop up. This is easy to do and creates a great look. Start to finish it only takes a couple of hours.

Life is alot like quilting. Simplicity is powerful. We often try to cram far too much into this Christmas season. Doing less will allow us to appreciate what we do even more. Quiet and creative spaces can serve to frame the more active times in the next few weeks. Sometimes it is what we don't do that makes all the difference.

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