Mother Patchworks Day Spa

I know you all said that a 2013 deadline for my Christmas table runner would be fine, however I didn't want to add to the WIP or UFO list...not to mention the wish list as I am already coming up with new patterns to try for 2013.

So I took the excuse of being parked in by the curtain installation man, to not go out Friday afternoon and sat and stitched until I finished the piecing.  Then early Saturday morning I spray basted it...luckily I had a nice large piece of red check for a backing and I did my usual trick of piecing left over long strips of wadding.   However I wanted to wait for it to dry before I started quilting. 

I had only made the four centre Dresden's and they are suppose to be surrounded by embroidery.  I started one Friday night while watching TV.  It involves lots of satin stitch, which I struggle with.  So I went to the patchwork shop for the jumbo rick rack...but forgot to bring the blue background fabric.  Hence I couldnt decide and ended up with blue and red rick rack and two pieces of blue fabric, for another project.  I went home determined to skip the hand stitch and give my machine a run. 

DS1 decided he wanted a foot spa, which DH brought me when I was pregnant with DS1!  It doesn't get used as often as I would like...on me!  So after DS1 had a turn, DS2 had to have a turn.  By this stage I could have mopped the floor with the water that was on it!  Then later DS1 had to have another turn, but lined up his Lego first, so he could watch TV, play Lego and have a foot spa!  And because he can read now he wanted to know if he could have the "heat and bubbles" option on... he wasn't convinced that kids/water/electricity was a bad mix, but I was 100% sure I wasn't plugging it in!

 So in between running a day spay I got the Dresden's finished - I am skipping the embroidery, figure they look fine without - especially as I used a print for the background.  I also figured this is 2012 and I could justify machine applique (it is a bag after all), so dug out the mono filament thread and voila!

 So this is "the pocket" completed.  Excuse my feet, they didn't get a spa yesterday!  Now the pattern is fairly good, but it didn't mention the need to quilt the three layers...just add the binding.  I was convinced that wasn't going to work for me, especially since I used wadding scraps (again got to use up those long pieces left over from quilt edges) instead of iron on pellon.  And given that iron pellon only sticks to one side I did a quick large stipple all around the Dresden's. 

Oh and I had to go back to the patchwork shop because I ran out of red jumbo rick rack!  BUT the bonus was I came home with the my FIRST layer cake ! ;-)  Well I could NOT leave it there because the fabrics are a lovely mix of blue/cream/gold....just perfect to make the Blue n white lil twister that is on my wish list BUT make it a large twister using my new large twister template. 

2013 is going to be my year of dragging out patterns/tool that I have brought and not ever made/used!

Hope you are having stitching good time this weekend, happy quilting, Sue SA.