One Monthly Goal - February Success Story - The Dogwood Runner

 

My one monthly goal for February was to quilt the borders on the Dogwood Table Runner and bind and finish the runner. Success!  I mailed it to Florida on February 10th.

Back in 2013 after I finished the top of the Dogwood Runner, and quilted the flowers and leaves, I found a dogwood motif online which has been floating around my sewing room for the past 8 years. I kept intending to pull this out and finish it, especially as every time I moved it, I got stabbed by the pins along the borders.

The initial quilting was done on the flowers and leaves in 2013 or 2014.

I don't like marking my quilts with inks that might accidentally become permanent. So that leaves me with white chalk, which would have worked except that it is a slightly complex motif that I didn't want to draw over and over and over, or my choice for this quilt of Golden Threads paper.

In my February Goal setting post, I described how I prepped the quilt and transferred the motif from the printout to the Golden Threads paper.

These are my lessons from the table runner.

• The paper is fragile and rips easily as you stitch over it. That could be a plus as it eases removal, but a minus if you aren't comfortable with your motif.
• It is possible to catch the foot under the paper tearing the motif away, which negates having your motif there to guide you. You can carefully rip a little more to solve the problem.
• The paper blocks the view of your stitches, making it harder to gauge stitch length to spot check stitch quality while stitching unless you stop to lift the paper (you can, of course, still check for tension on the back). For me, on the runner, it resulted in much smaller stitches than I intended. Someone more comfortable with their machine and stitching small motifs may not have the issues I did this time around.
• Extremely small stitches trap the paper, and this does not dissolve. An alternative to Golden Threads would be a dissolvable stabilizer - but that is more expensive. 
• PATIENCE and TWEEZERS and a really good lint roller are necessary for removing the bits of paper scraps. I think it took longer to clean up the runner than it did to stitch the border areas.
  

Aside from the tiny stiches and the Corgi fluff, I love the way this turned out. And once it was washed, you can't really tell how small the stitches are unless you get uber close with a magnifying glass. The lint roller was good both for tiny paper bits and Corgi fluff.

I was almost done, looked up to see what was on the TV, turned a corner and sewed the quilt to itself. Because of the location of my oops, and the aforementioned really tiny stitches, I opted to trim the 'excess' fabric off and then pull it out from under the stitches with my handy tweezers. A good reminder to pay attention to what I'm doing.

I decided to bind the quilt using the backing fabric. As I didn't plan that in advance, I had batting left to trim. In order to avoid accidentally cutting my backing I pulled all of it underneath the runner and squared up. I then trimmed the backing to one inch around and pressed it in half and then over the top. Once pinned, I machine stitched it down for a tidy finish.

A quick trip through the wash, with a color catcher that is now a delightful raspberry in color, and I realized the one strip next to the yellow flower on top should have been quilted with dogwoods as well as that little strip puffed up and looked silly. So back under the needle it went as I luckily had an extra strip of the motif already punched.

On my way to ship it to Florida, I stopped for a quick outdoor photo.  Mom is thrilled with it, and I am pleased both with the way it turned out and that it is finally done!

Linking to One Monthly Goal - February Finishes