My mom has been hinting for quite awhile now that she would like some table runners for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I finally took the bait and made her a little something for Christmas this year. She LOVED it. I love how she really appreciates all the work that went into it because she knows what it takes to do each little step.
I got a little creative and made the runner double sided. One side is for Christmas:
and the other side is for fall:
I quilted each side separately on its own piece of fusible fleece. That way I could quilt each side differently without having the different quilting styles showing on the opposite side. Then I fused the two pieces of fleece together. Clever, eh? Well, I think it worked okay. It took quite a bit of pressing to get the heat from my iron to make it all the way through the layers to the middle of the runner where the fusible part was. I really like using fleece for a table runner, though. It's nice and stiff. At least, that's how I think a runner should be...
It's a little small, because I was using leftover fleece and didn't think it would be good to go to the store just for a few more inches of the stuff. ;)
I used this Holiday Lane pattern as inspiration for the Christmas side.
I quilted each house differently (one with "bricks," one with "logs," and one with "stones" - can you tell?) and used a blanket stitch to stitch down the applique (except for the doors - I think it looks a little like lights or snow, don't you think?). I'm really loving this applique method lately. As long as I have plenty of Heat N Bond! I planned to quilt the sky with pebbles (like THIS pillow that I LOVE), but I didn't have any blue thread, wasn't willing to make a late night run to the store for some, and when I used white thread it totally overwhelmed the design on the fabric. So I went for simple wavy lines with a few snowflakes thrown in.
For the fall side, I mostly used the Give Thanks Layer Cake that I won in THIS giveaway (thanks Melissa and Leah). I just printed a few pumpkins from google images and copied them for the applique. I ran out of regular Heat N Bond, and had to use my Ultra Heat N Bond, which is supposedly "No Sew." I decided to risk it and sew my pieces down anyway. I think we are okay - I just had to wipe the gum off my needle after each piece. ;)
The middle section was just little bit of improv piecing.
I got lucky with the binding. It just so happens that I had a big piece of already prepared binding left over from another project that was just the right size for my runner! And it was black, so I didn't have to worry about attempting to match both sides. I wanted the binding to be extra durable, so I machine stitched it down on both sides. I used about a million clips in an effort to keep everything even on both sides. 
And then, since a table runner wasn't quite enough, I made a couple sets of matching towels to go with it. I'm kind of obsessed with towels lately. They are really cheap and really easy to embellish. I made a few for a wedding gift a few months ago and they were really fun.
I did have some issues with the Christmas towels. I REALLY didn't want to have to sew down every single one of those tiny roof appliques (the snow), so I used my "no-sew" Heat N Bond, assuming that the fabric would fuse like it is supposed to and wouldn't require sewing. However, I must have done something wrong (note to self: I think I held my iron down too long when I fused the paper to the fabric in the first step and melted all the stuff that is supposed to fuse fabric to fabric in the second step). When I got up to check on them Christmas Eve morning, most of the little pieces were peeling off! So I did a little bit of quick Christmas Eve morning sewing - just enough to make sure none of the pieces actually fell off. :)
The fall towels came out great.
I even made a set of towels for my college age sister-in-law. Next time I think I will just do circles, rather than flowers with 10 petals. Eek!
I used verigiated thread, so that I wouldn't have to switch thread colors for each piece. I kind of like it.
Although, next time I will use more solids and no more of this "prints on top of prints" business.
Korina loved them, thankfully.
Oh yeah - one more thing. I made a couple pillowcases for my music loving sister and her fishing loving husband to go on their super long pillows that nobody seems to make pillowcases to fit. :) I mostly referred to THIS tutorial and THIS tutorial (the tube is amazing) and made them long enough to fit a "King" size pillow. I think they turned out really nice and the recipients were super grateful. :) And amazingly, the fabric all came from my stash. Score!
And now I am excited to jump into my post-Christmas sewing adventures!
How was your Christmas?
