I am back on my quilting kick and recently have had some fun stuff going on with quilting!

For Lois’s birthday, I made another table runner for her.  I love table runners because it’s a year round gift – not a heavy quilt in the spring/summer.  I also love how I can be more intricate in design due to size.

I first found this table runner – and had planned to make this exactly.

However, I thought at 2inch for 40 squares would be the skinniest/weirdest looking table runner ever. I ended up sewing the squares the same way, but then rearranged the pattern to look like diamonds with chevron boarder.

Between the pattern and fabric, I am very happy about how this came out.

Lois spent some of her birthday week helping me (aka doing it for me) with my long arm quilting frame. Let’s just say when I tired to set this up in January, everyone got yelled at – the dude, Leopold, Boris, and a Centurylink installer who just happened to be there. I’m so glad she put it together though, because now I’m incredibly excited to get back into quilt making!

If some of you don’t know what a quilt frame is, it essentially makes it so I can free-motion, or more easily quilt the fabric without having to drag it through the smaller machine.  There are some crazy AF people online with hooks and rope systems telling you that you don’t need a quilting frame, but that’s nuts.  I was going to post a picture here, but decided to since I wouldn’t want to be put on blast doing something that requires so much more work with IMO not the best results.  However there are some gurus out there that you would never know they did the quilting on their basic sewing machine – but I’m not that good, nor do I have the patience for that crap. But, regardless both methods give you an entirely different finished look. I was tired of the same old, same old in my quilting so I’m beyond excited to get going with my new Juki and frame!

Regular Machine Quilting Example:

Free-Motion Quilt Frame Example: