Garden Walk Runner

Here is the first project I made for the Elegant Embroidered Quilts with Amanda Murphy Craftsy class.  It's called the Garden Walk Runner and combines machine embroidery with quilting.  The sample that Amanda showed was made with sweet floral fabrics in pink which just isn't my style - very pretty, but it wouldn't suit my decor or taste.  Not satisfied with anything I had in my stash, and wanting to get going, I ended up visiting my local quilt shop.  It took me a while to find something suitable and a fabric line/collection that had all the elements I needed: a focal print for the end borders, a bold contrasting colour for the sides in a small print, mid-tones for the zig-zags, and something plain I could embroider for the centre panel.

I like the fabric I picked and I think the Asian look even goes well with the flower embroidery that Amanda provides in the class!  I selected embroidery thread to match as well as I could from my Marathon Threads sets and I think I did fairly well.  I only needed the outside green of the leaves from my Madeira set (it's rayon thread and since I used the FriXion pen for marking, removed by a warm iron, I had to be really careful I didn't melt it!).

My flower placement ended up a bit 'off' but overall I'm pretty happy with how the runner turned out.  Amanda's method of lining up the continuous embroidery down the panel was really easy using a centre line and sticky stabilizer so the fabric didn't have to be lined up under a hoop.  It was so much less stressful getting the embroidery machine needle in the right place!  Once the embroidery was done the piecing was fairly straight-forward: a bunch of half-square triangles and some borders.  Of course, I still had some challenges and got wonky seams but the runner lies pretty flat in the end.  Also, the zig-zags really stand out and you might never guess they were made from half-square triangles!

The quilting was very fun, fast, and easy because I simply duplicated what Amanda did on her sample runner.  I figured she did a great job picking the design so why make things hard on myself.  I used my Horizon to quilt, which was so fun and easy with such a small piece to stitch.  I felt like I had so much control on the machine (versus the frame & 1600P combo) so it was really relaxing and a blast to sew.

Really, though, making a runner requires all the same processes as making a full size quilt, including adding the binding.  Since it's on a smaller scale I thought I'd just machine stitch it to the front and hand-sew it on the back.  It didn't take too long to do but when I got a few black stitches poking through to my top I remembered how I don't really like hand sewing!  I do think the finished binding looks nice but I definitely would go back to 100% machine binding on a larger quilt!

So that's my 'bumped to the front of the line' embroidery project completed and now I will start a quilt.  I think it will be The Secret Garden Quilt because it is just so pretty and easy.  I'm glad I made the runner though and I can't wait to add one of Amanda's embroidered quilts to my to-do list!  I love being able to use BOTH my machines - embroidery and sewing - to make a project.  You can use the link above to check out Amanda's Craftsy class.

Comments

[Maureen]

It's beautiful - I love the fabrics you chose!