Quick Runner - a Fast, Pretty, and Easy Gift

This is a super easy table runner that I made for my best friend for Christmas. 

Surprise: my mother just told me she designed the pattern for the runner. You can e-mail her at LaPrincipessa40@aol.com for info about purchasing it.

I made this runner with five fabrics. It is definitely possible to make it with less; probably 3-4, depending on how you arrange them. The print fabrics I used are by Phillip Jacobs. I also used a Kaffe Fassett green shot cotton and a blue batik.

I started off by embroidering a bird on the batik that would match the fabric in the outside squares. This bird embroidery was downloaded from urbanthreads. 
Here's the link: http://www.urbanthreads.com/products.aspx?productid=UT3536

I also looked at a million hummingbird embroidery files in trying to select one and finally settled on this "Doodle Hummingbird" because it is more open than not. I thought that an embroidery that was too dense would detract from the overall piece. I tried to pick up colors in the embroidery that would match the colors in the other blocks.

Assembly for this project is simple - sew the borders attaching the squares horizontally, sew the borders on top. Sew outside borders. 

Because I hate binding, I decided to do a wrap-around binding. There are three levels of binding.

1. The correct way to bind - sew to the front on the machine, sew to the back by hand.

2. The lazy way - sew to the back by machine, sew to the front by machine, use a decorative stitch to disguise your laziness as creativity.

3. The super lazy way - make the back of the piece about an inch larger than the front, fold that in half moving around the piece, fold it over the front, and machine sew it to the front by machine, using a decorative stitch to disguise your laziness as creativity.

I'm a solid level three binding quilter on small projects. On bigger projects, I go for number two.

Of course the backing was a little too small to fit the front of the quilt and do the wrap-around binding, so I had to add a small strip of green down the middle of the back, which actually ended up looking interesting on the front, so I'm really happy with that decision anyway.

After sandwiching top, batting, and backing, I quilted a decorative stitch centered on the green borders using a variegated blue thread.

Finally, I completed my wrap-around binding, took some pictures, and packed it up in a box to ship off to Florida.

This pattern was super quick and easy and I think I'm going to use it to make myself a runner out of some Kaffe Fasset fabrics that I received for Christmas.