Sweet Home Quilt Co.

“Sleepless in Conyers” describes me perfectly these days!  Having been married to me for more than 25 years, Mike is pretty much accustomed to my weird sleep habits; yet even he has begun commenting on my “restlessness,” which is his nice way of saying I’m keeping him awake! For the last week or so I’ve stopped fighting the inevitable and just not going to bed at all, or getting up as soon as my eyes open instead of lying in bed trying to go back to sleep.

Last night I didn’t even bother going to bed because I knew I’d never go to sleep. I thought about doing some cleaning, but was afraid I’d wake Mike (yeah right! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) and I wasn’t in the mood to do any computer work or even to read blogs. So I got out the couple of shop models I’d brought home to work on over the weekend and proceeded to sew the night away!

These are a couple of table runners that I made using a pattern from The Quilt Company called Easy Striped Table Runner. The pattern is designed specifically to use striped fabrics and a 60 degree triangle ruler (I used a Creative Grids 8-inch finished 60 degree ruler).  The cherries fabric is a 60″ wide border print, and the neat thing is that once you use the border print for the runner, you’re left with the center portion which is perfect for the backing – no waste at all! The blue snowflake runner was the first one I did and I learned a couple of tricks for matching the design, but it still came out pretty well. Only five seams and the top is done!  Looking at the detail pictures you can see how the 60 degree triangles are used to match up the design so it almost appears seamless. Very quick once you get the hang of it. Neither of these have been quilted yet (I’ll do that tonight if I still can’t sleep!!). The pattern suggests a simple pillowcase finish – no binding – using the design in the fabric to quilt after layering and turning. I think I’d prefer to bind it, but I’ll try it the other way first.  This pattern is very well written with good photos to go along with the instructions, and options for matching placemats. There are also instructions for making your own “stripe” fabric to create a specific design. Lots of possibilities with this one -  I’ll be on the hunt for more striped fabrics to use. (Sorry for the yucky pictures – the light isn’t very good at 4AM so you get what you get!)

I also made a Wine Bag Tote from the Let’s Do Lunch book by Terry Atkinson, using my new favorite fabric line Figgy Pudding by Moda. Two fat quarters and a half hour and this one was done, start to finish! (The wine bottle is empty, by the way, but I didn’t empty it recently!) I’ll be making more of these for gifts – quick, easy and so cute! I “heart” Terry Atkinson’s designs. Her instructions are well written with helpful diagrams that even a beginner can easily follow.

So what did you do with your night?

Tags: Gift Ideas, insomnia, quick gifts

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 6:04 PM and is filed under Shop Samples. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.