ALYOF: February Goal Complete

By the skin of my teeth, I'm sliding in under the wire with my finish for February's ALYOF. That may be a bit of an over-dramatization since I still have almost a week to link up to the finishes party. I was counting on my goal being a quick finish, and I guess it was. Yesterday I started with nothing but the completed table runner top for my strawberry table runner. I took it from cutting/making the back to sandwiching, to quilting, to binding, and I am happy to say that it is now residing in its place of honor on my dining room table.

So here's a little pictorial of this finish. I started here yesterday morning with the finished quilt top:

I was still undecided about the fabric for the back. I was trying to decide between using the same border fabric or, in the alternative, this yellow gingham with red strawberries. Eventually, I settled on the gingham, reasoning that the white quilting thread would show less and that it would give me a second choice for displaying it on my table.

It was a simple matter to cut the backing fabric, and then I made my quilt sandwich.

I started quilting in the center white square with a cluster of strawberry blossoms, leaves, and in each of the four corners, a quilted strawberry.

Also I did a little squiggle design around the green border and quilted a strawberry into each of the corners there as well. After that, I quilted some cross-hatching onto the baskets and outlined the strawberry appliques. Also, I stitched in the ditch around the baskets and their handles.

Show me a quilt, and I'll tell you where the cat is sitting.

I quilted a little strawberry, strawberry blossom and leaf motif into the white areas on either side of the baskets and the remaining white areas were done with a little loopy meander that also incorporated strawberries.

There are strawberries quilted into each of the cornerstones and another little loopy deal around the border. I couldn't decide what to do there. Since I already had that loopy design in the green center square, I decided to do the same thing around the outside. I used that same design to quilt the handles on the basket, but on a much narrower scale.

And then, I bound it and finished the hand-sewing this morning. Here it is!

I decided to name this table runner "Freckled Fruit". Here's how it looks from the back:

It's not my favorite quilt ever, but I like it better now that it's quilted. Since I wasn't particularly wedded to it, it was a good one to practice my free motion quilting, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The strawberries were easier to quilt than I expected them to be.

And now, Gracie would like you to know that Smitty isn't the only one who liked the new catnip scratching pad. 

Uh-Oh. Trouble's brewing.

"Back off, Man. Seriously! Back. Off!"

Gracie grew up on the mean streets of the Three Cats Ranch. She is a force to be reckoned with when she sets her mind to it.

So next on my list of things to do is my project for this month's Book It Challenge. I'm going to get a start on my HST Christmas Tree wall hanging. This is the one I'm going to rope Matthew into helping me with. We want to try to light it up with LEDs eventually. Of course, I'll have to actually finish it first. 

We've finally dried up here in Oregon, and so Mike and I are going to go for a walk at the top of our hill once the temperatures warm up a little this morning. It'll give me a chance to experiment with the lenses I got for my iPhone. I've played with the macro lenses a little bit, but from the top of the hill there should be a nice landscape to try out the wide angle and fish-eye lenses. I'm putting dinner in the crockpot today, and I have some housework to do, but then I should have at least a little time to get started on this new project.

And did you hear about the party going on over at Lily Pad Quilts?

Padsworth and Dragon Drop want to know what you've been doing during this cold winter. We've had some cold here in Oregon, but recently, it's been raining sideways. We get cabin fever on this side of the country too. So there's a linky party going on...with prizes! Check it out right here.

The month is coming to a close and I still have four items on my February list of goals. How's it coming at your end?