1st Finish

1st Finish

To say that I've been inspired by Dana of Old Red Barn Co. & her loverly blog would be an understatement. I don't even remember how I ran across her blog but I was hooked. With her down to earth personality & love of family, home, & crafty goodness how could I resist? She made quilting look not only fun but dare I say it, easy? Something that always seemed out of reach for me became an attainable goal. I have attempted my own version of "quilting" in the past but it was laughable. I knew I really needed to get back to basics to figure it all out. Although this is my first official quilting project & full of imperfections, I had such a fun time working on it. Thanks Dana for sharing your talent!

My garage is full of several bins of unused fabric. It's sinful. I have all these amazing fabrics & even memo samples of luxury fabrics from when I worked up at Lake Tahoe for an interior designer. I decided that I really need to do something with all this fabric I have. If I don't then it feels a little like hoarding. So I dove into my stash & put all the pieces together. The Nativity toile that I used for the top has been sitting in a box since Sloan was a baby. Sad huh? The cream cotton on the back I bought in college, gasp! The two squares on the back are from Bernhardt & Cowtan & Tout I've had the pleasure of working with both companies on several projects . Their products speaks for themselves. It felt good to use what I had sitting around the house to create something. The table runner measures 70"x17". I used a free motion quilting machine for the top. It was a little tricky to get the rhythm down with the pattern but once I did it went pretty quickly. I chose to hand sew the binding on. It took two tries & a visit to a local quilting store in San Diego to get this part right. Silly me, I'd forgotten how to hand sew. It's been years people! I worked on the binding over several evenings while watching movies with family over Christmas holiday. This project has motivated me to keep moving forward with my new found love of quilting. It's a total challenge for me & I like a good challenge. If you are interested in buying it you can find it in my shop!

I'm so excited at the response I'm getting for this "52 Finishes" challenge. I have a few kinks to tinker out with the Flicker page & Facebook page but once I have them up (hopefully this weekend) I will let you know. My hopes are that this challenge will encourage creative living on a daily basis. That maybe you will view this world we live in & the life you live with new eyes. Don't let things, people, or circumstances hold you back from following your dreams. Life is short & sweet & I choose to live it to the fullest. Can't wait to see your 1st Finishes!

1 down 51 to go

linking ::here::