Spring Promise

The old saying of "time flies when you are having fun" is certainly true in my case.  When I have my head down designing and sewing, little else gets attended to.  (like blogging...or housework!) 

I've really been concentrating on new designs lately, and have well over a dozen sketched out.  Not all of those will come to fruition of course;  some will get added to the "what was I thinking??" pile.  Others are just snippets of ideas...things that might work for a border, or as a secondary block, but not be the star of the quilt.  Those go into a vault for when an idea is needed.  

This week with the approach of spring, it was time to sew a new runner - a quick and simple one. It features a central appliqued blocks flanked on each end by checkerboard patchwork.  The petal elements are arranged in a circle.  

I have found the easiest way to get a perfect circle is to fold the fabric into quarters, and press it lightly to mark the lines.  Then I rifle through all the pot lids in the kitchen to find one the size of my circle.  I trace around this with a Hera marker, so that I have no marks to remove afterwards.

As you can see, it leaves nice registration marks in the fabric, which come out with a quick press once the elements are added.

I decided to use 50 weight thread to do the blanket stitch around the edges.  

The end panels are quilted in diagonal lines using a walking foot.  The fun begins with the centre block, where feathery shapes are free motion quilted.

The feathers almost look like butterflies. (Happy accident!)

The pattern is available from my website and you can follow the links there for printed or downloadable versions. As always, I am grateful for the sharp eyes of Cheryl Coville of Grandma Coco Designs for her help in checking the instructions.

I've also done up thread sets with spring colours of Aurifil 50 weight which you can find here

The pictures are a wee bit pale because our weather was anything but spring-like for the photo shoot. (it was snowing!) However...we do have the promise of spring. :)