Spiral Table Runner

I’ve finished another table runner – this one for the dining room table. I’ve wanted something for that table for ages. I found this pattern – Spicy Spiral Table Runner from School House Quilts – at my local quilt shop, and bought it and a 10 degree wedge ruler to go with it. This was a fun and quick pattern to make. In fact, I think the hardest part was choosing the fabrics. I used 8 batik fabrics, moving from dark green to dark purple, with light tones in the middle.

Here is the spiral top, with the wedges all stitched together. It looks sort of cool like that, doesn’t it?

Once the wedges were sewn together, the corners were trimmed off to create a smooth curve.

I went with the stitch-and-flip method of layering, as recommended in the pattern, so I wouldn’t have to stitch on a binding. In this picture it is ready to sew, with the batting, backing and top all layered in order:

I quilted it by sewing curving lines that follow the curves of colour, using matching cotton thread for each swirl.

Here it is, in place in the dining room:

I’m very happy with it – the colours go very well in the room, and it has a contemporary flair to it that I really like.

The only thing that was missing was a set of matching placemats. The table runner is quite wide, so I needed to make the placemats shallow. I also needed to make them wider than usual, because we often have both a dinner plate and a salad plate on the table at the same time. I chose from the fabrics used in the table runner, using the ones that I had the most of. This is one of the placemats, layered and flipped in the same manner as the table runner, and then quilted. I quilted straight lines using the wedge ruler as a guide, to echo the wedge shapes in the table runner.

I liked it, but it seemed like it needed something to punch it up a bit. It also needed some green. So I added satin stitch in green along the seam lines between the three fabrics. Here is a finished placemat:

Tonight we try them out for the first time.

This is my third finished project for 2012. I think my desire to finish a couple of traditional quilted items has been satisfied. I’ve been feeling the itch to pull out the art quilt projects that I was working on last spring, and finish some of them off. I’ve been getting inspired by some of the blogs I read, and by Quilting Arts magazine articles. I have some new beads, and some new ideas, and as soon as I put away the remnants of these batiks, I’m pulling out the fun stuff to play for a while.

Some details:

fabric: assorted batik fabrics from my stash – the pattern uses 8 fat quarters, plus 1 yard for backing.

table runner pattern: Spicy Spiral Table Runner from School House Quilts

placemats pattern: my own design. The finished size is 10″ by 21.5″

what kept me company while sewing: Warehouse 13, seasons 1 and 2, on DVD.

For anyone interested, I found this very good blog post that shows step-by-step how to put this table runner together, on the Sew We Quilt with Love blog.