Central Park Tablerunner

I used the pattern Simple Little Runner by Camille Roskelley (she's awesome and I love her new book, Simplify) from Moda Bakeshop. I made this for a friend as a birthday gift. It's always fun to have a reason to sew something.

This is the runner, taped to the wall, before machine quilting it. I used a Central Park by Kate Spain charm pack, so not a lot of cutting was involved (Yeah!) and white for the two strips and binding. The hardest part for me was arranging the squares, it seriously took me way longer than it should have. I ended up only doing 7 rows instead of the 8 in the pattern.

This is the first project I've machine quilted. I'm pretty happy in general with how it turned out. Sometimes I get a little crazy unpicking things unless it turns out just right, which makes any project take longer. I tried out some of the presser feet (a quilting foot and a walking foot) I bought for my machine years ago and never used until now. I tried out free motion quilting on a scrap and wow! do I need to practice that a lot before ever using it on something I want to look nice. So, I used my walking foot to sew straight lines. A sweet friend T*was very helpful answering some of my questions over the phone. I machine stitched the binding on rather than hand stitching it on the back; mainly to save time. I think it turned out looking nice with the other lines on the front, but the back was only so-so. The stitching line on the back wasn't exactly straight relative to the binding in some areas, but I hope it's good enough.

I really LOVE the blue floral (especially the purple) backing fabric. (the sun is shining on the middle making it lighter) I may need to figure out something else to make with this print.....