traditional dresden table runner

Well here I am again. Haven't blogged since February. I never did do much about my "disaster quilt". It is still just a quilt top folded up in my closet. My newest aspiration is to actually quilt my own quilts. Then I can really say I am a quilter. Right now I'm still just a "topper".  I have been working on some quilting courses from a site called "Craftsy". It all started in January with the block of the month class which is free. I love anything that is free. But really this course is very good. I have been learning so many new techniques. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is getting into quilting. Just recently I've signed up for more "Craftsy" classes (not free but worth the money). I'm learning how to quilt my tops with these classes. I am planning on using my "disaster" quilt as practice for quilting. At least if I really goof up on it I won't be too upset. In the next several blogs I will do some catching up with what I've been up to since last February. Today I have posted some pictures of a table runner that I made for my mother's birthday. In the center of the runner there is a block called a traditional dresden. This was the July block from block of the month. I used scraps of fabric to make this runner that were left over from the quilt I made her from her last birthday. On each side of the dresden I just randomly put together some fabric scraps. My mom loves the quilt I gave her last year and has it on her sofa in her living room. Since her dining room is ajoined to her living room I thought it would be nice to use the same fabric. This is the first table runner I've ever made. I did not want to sew binding around the edges like on a quilt. I just wanted to sew it all together with right sides together leaving just enough open to flip it right side out and then stitch the rest together by hand with a blind stitch. Well I made a BIG boo boo when I was stitching it together. I laid out my fabric with the backing then the batting and then the top like a sandwich. Then I stitched it together. When I started to flip it right side out I realized the batting was on the outside where the backing should be. Oops! That was a big job to pick apart! I thought it through and figured out I needed to put the batting down first and then the backing followed by the top (right sides together). This time success. To finish it off I stitched in the ditch along some of the lines. Although I wanted to pratice quilting I didn't want to do too much on the table runner because I didn't want the back to start pulling. I've learned that once you start quilting a quilt the backing gets pulled in a little. That is why you need the backing and batting to be a couple of inches larger than the quilt top all the way around. Of course later the excess gets trimmed of and the binding is applied.