One more project to share before C-Day… I don’t know about you, but this holiday season has flown by so quickly this year! I love the Diary of a Quilter blog and the improv patchwork tree tutorial she shared recently, so I decided to make a table runner using her blocks.

I really liked her clean white-and-green palette with a hint of red, so I searched for similar scraps in my stash. I used 5 x 5 charm squares but otherwise kept the same measurements as the original tutorial.

I decided to use a QAYG (Quilt As You Go) technique from Jera Brandvig’s Quilt as You Go Made Modern book to speed up the quilting process. By sewing the fabric directly to the batting while constructing each block, half the work is already done by the time the top is completed. It’s also a great way to use up batting scraps that I hoard for no good reason… except projects like this! I I used 7 x 7″ batting scraps for the QAYG process, and trimmed the blocks to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″ squares.  I loved getting to quilt more densely during the QAYG process, because normally I would never be able to do such detail. I did “echo” quilting around each triangle, inside the tree, and straight lines across the trunk.

After playing around with the layout a bit, I did a two by two checkerboard and added a 2 1/2″ border with more white scraps (with a simple wavy stitch for the quilting). For the backing and binding, I used a red snowflake print leftover from my Fair Isle quilt.  A simple quilting grid joins the three layers, and I used the “cheater binding” method to finish it all up.

Cora had to inspect the new addition, of course… I think she approves!

Here’s a pic from last week’s Music City Modern Quilt Guild meeting where I shared for show and tell (the feather’s aren’t mine, although I wish they were!)

I love using the same holiday decorations year after year, especially if they’re handmade… so happy to add this to our collection!  I’m linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish Friday!