Project Quilting 10.6 - Chocolate Craving

It's the final challenge in Season 10 of Project Quilting!


 It has been a blast playing along this year and I'm so happy to have completed all 6 challenges! This week's theme was Craving Chocolate - perfect, because think most of us quilters keep a little secret stash that has noting to do with fabric...

Shhh. Don't tell my children...

There were moments when I didn't think this one was going to get finished.  When the challenge theme was posted on Sunday, I was busy wrapping up my daughter's show, and just, in general, exhausted from two weekends of shows.  On Monday I had oral surgery (ouch) and spent the next two days feeling pretty crummy.   The latter part of the week was spent getting my house ready to host my family on Saturday to celebrate some birthdays.  Cleaning and food prep took two whole days out of my quilting time!  At 8:00 on Saturday evening, after guests left and the last of the dishes were washed, I headed to the sewing room.  I almost threw in the towel in favor of a couple hours on the couch in front of the TV,  but, no, I decided that finished was better than perfect and sat down to see what I could do in two hours.

This is my new Easter table runner!  Like several other Project Quilting participants this week, I used the iconic chocolate bunny silhouette.  I'm sure the fact that these guys started popping up at the grocery store before the Valentine's hearts were even gone has something to do with that!

As with the other project quilting challenges, I found that the key to finishing this runner was to not overthink.  I also continue to find that the right tools, fabrics and notions are right where I need them to be, when I need them.  It's like sewing room magic!

After deciding to put the chocolate hoppers on a cream background, I found a runner-ish sized rectangle in my low volume fabric stack.  It didn't even need to be trimmed or squared up, so that became the background.  I had only one brown solid, so these are dark chocolate bunnies, my favorite.  I knew I'd want a border of some sort.  I decided I liked not having to measure and cut the background, so I went to my messy bin of pre cut strips and found four springy colors in polka dots from a long forgotten jelly roll. 

The dots on the strips are in two shades of each color, so that inspired my thread choices for the background quilting.  I actually HAD the right shades of each color!  And they looked so cute on my little cake stand ready to be used!

 Originally I was going to just matchstick quilt with straight lines in all the different colors.  But, then inspiration struck!  I decided to use a zig zag and a decorative flower stitch to make it a bit more Easter egg like.  I'd had so much fun doing raw edge applique on my Abdedarius project, so that's what I went with for the bunnies.   And, guess what?  Right there on the end of the ironing board, was a square of fusible backing that I hadn't put away from last time!!  No hunting or searching or even getting up to get it!  Win!

No way was I going to make binding, so I went back to the pre-cut bin to find strips to bind with.  The was an 8:30 Saturday night decision, and I literally  held my breath, not knowing if I'd find something that would work.  But, look at that!  The right color and shade for each side.  Would you believe it if I told you that the blue one was exactly the right size?  An inch shorter and it would not have worked! 

And finally, those bows!  Each one of them is made from a ribbon scrap that I pulled out of the box of tiny bits that I save for some unknown reason.  Finding just enough in each of the four colors at 9:45 on Saturday night felt like hitting the jackpot!  I love that they are each different, so each bunny gets a bit of a personality.  And I love that the green one says "Family and Fun".  Good words for Easter and Spring Break in my house!

I walked out of the sewing room at 10:04 p.m with this completed table runner.  I'm pretty tickled with the way it looks on my dark kitchen table.  Those bunnies really pop, don't they?  And, my daughters each immediately claimed a bunny to be "theirs", leaving one each for my husband and me.  Four bunnies for my family of four.  Not planned, but perfect.  Just like so many parts of the process. 

I have to admit that I'm not too happy with the corners of my binding.  I truly was in "just get it done" mode at that point,  I tried something new for binding (stitching on the back and bringing around to the front to top stitch, which I will definitely try again, but since I used 4 different colors not one continuous strip, I had to make the corners up as I went.  It doesn't bother me too much, since when I look at this all I see is the FUN I had making it. But, the corners alone will keep me from entering this in the county fair.  That's OK.  Project quilting sparked some new ideas and I have plenty of time to finish some fair project before summer.

I changed thread colors for this project more than I EVER have before.  I will admit I sighed heavily each time I changed it while putting on the binding.  But, I think I'm over my mental block about it now.  It CAN be done, and I won't be so hesitant in the future. 

I just love how this table runner finished up.  I am so pleased with the way it came together and I love the feeling of FLOW I get from all the materials and tools being right were I needed them.  That's been the feeling in my sewing room since I started participating in Project Quilting!    I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but I like to think it has something to do with the collective positive energy that Kim and Trisha and all of the participants put out in to the universe each week!  I can't wait to do it again next year!!

I created this table runner in my sewing room in Slinger, Wisconsin.  I'm linking up for the last Project Quilting Challenge of Season 10.  Don't forget to visit some of the other contestants and LEAVE COMMENTS!  The comments make us all smile, so take a minute and do it!