Createlivity: Sometimes, I Get Stopped

Today, I went and sewed with my cousin, Roxanne. We have done this for years, off and on. We've both enjoyed visiting and spending time together while we made things. We've sewn LOTS of things together, but the finish we did today was very important to me.

Back in 2021, around the beginning of the end of the pandemic quarantine, I started sewing Christmas presents for my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law. I had been experimenting making quilt blocks, and I figured I was ready for the next step. Not a full sized quilt, or anything, but festive table runners.

This is part of the table runner I made for Linda

This is part of Carrie's

I'm not going to dwell too much on Linda's in this post. There may well be a post about it from about then, or maybe more like 2023 (if I posted much that year) which is when I think I finished it and gifted it to her. This is the saga of Carrie's table runner.

First, let's start with those snow globes. I love them. I enjoyed making the snow globes very much. So many of the fabrics just made me happy, like those snowmen. They just kill me every time I see them! (Notice they make an appearance in Linda's as well.) We won't dwell on the imperfections of the quilt building. I know the corners don't all match up. I know things are kinda wonky here and there. Those are things that improve with practice, and I am very much a novice quilt builder. I am also more interested in finishing than finishing perfectly. Not that I want to have an imperfect product, but a complete project is important.

I was able to finish Linda's table runner, even though it wasn't in time for Christmas 2021, but once I got Carrie's top put together, I got stuck. It got put in a tub, and there it sat sadly, and I was frustrated with it.

How to finish this???

So, once Roxanne and I had been working on a couple of projects, I brought up the subject of this table runner, and how I was stuck on it. One of my problems (but not the only one) was having a machine that I thought would do the quilting. Mine is a workhorse, but while it does well on light weight to medium weight fabrics, it protests if the fabric or the layers are too thick. Roxanne had recently acquired a heavy duty machine, and I thought that would help us. She agreed that we should look at it and see if we could figure it out.

Oh my gosh, it really helped to talk it through with someone! We figured out what to do with the back of the table runner. I put together some blocks out of some of the left over fabrics, and we spread them out across the back, which was mostly made of an ornament design fabric.

Part of the back of Carrie's table runner

Then we had to decide how we were going to bind this piece. We finally decided to put the back and the front together, sew around it, and leave a hole big enough to turn the thing right side out, and then sew the hole closed as we went around the edge one more time. Now, I know there are experiences quilters that would frown on the, or perhaps just look askance. But you know what? It worked for us, and that was one more thing done. we were really getting close to being finished.

I'm sure I could have paid a professional quilt quilter to finish this table runner, but that really wasn't the point of this learning experience for us. We also happen to be working on creating quilts for each of us and when we are done with them, THOSE will go to someone with a long arm quilting machine to quilt. But not this. We discussed how much quilting this table runner needed, and what we thought the available machines, and the available talent/knowhow could achieve, then we pinned the table runner in preparation.

Sadly, the machine ended up in the shop, and our Christmas fabric box project took over for a bit, but after the holidays, the table runner came back out, and quilting got started. We don't try to hurry things, because that's when mistakes happen, so it took a couple of sessions to quilt it all (it is a LOoong table runner, like my sister-in-law asked for). Today, it got finished! I feel very appreciative of Roxanne's willingness to help me work through my stuck-ness, and to contribute to the building of this quilted table runner, and I feel like together, we accomplished something. It makes me happy.

A finished project may not be a perfect piece of art, but I really would rather have it finished than sitting around waiting for perfection.