Place mats and Runners, Oh My! - More Beginner Quilting Projects

Yesterday we talked about a most excellent way to start on your new quilting adventure: using a pre-printed panel to make a small baby quilt or wall hanging. Making a quilt from a panel.

Place mats and table runners are basically small quilts and can be another great way to start on your quilting adventure. You can practice piecing, make a few different quilt blocks and still end up with a finished project!

Table runners and place mats are small enough that you can easily do your own machine quilting. These all utilize simple straight-line quilting and a few wavy lines.  You can test out a complicated block and if you decide you're done after four blocks, they can become a set of place mats or a table runner!  I have been known to do this for sure.

A New Year - A New Craft: Beginner Quilt Project

The start of a new year is a great time to try a new craft so today I'm gonna show you a few panel quilts I've made in the past.  A preprinted panel with, or without, borders is a great way to start a quilting adventure. The smaller size makes a perfect baby quilt or lap quilt and you can have a finished project fairly quickly.

This is a really cute quilt I made for a new baby niece last year. I added the yellow border, quilted it with a meandering hearts design and added blue binding.

 

 Here's a view of the back:

I like to make cards (I'll be sharing more of those later) and here's the matching card I made to complete a very cute baby gift:

 Here's one of the very first quilts I made and it uses a panel with no borders. This is a great way to practice your machine quilting.

 

You can some some of the wobbly quilting designs I did!

 And here is a tiny receiving blanket size quilt made from a cute piece of flannel:

 

I used this to practice a ripply water quilting motif with little sailboats to coordinate with the fabric design.

 Here's a super cute Christmas wall hanging that I made for my daughter-in-law.

 

I got to practice my s-curl quilting and finally got the hang of that motif! What a fun panel!

So you can see a preprinted panel has huge potential for a great beginning quilt project and a fantastic hand-made gift!

Fran's Cat - Quilting Complete!

Here is a beautiful quilt made by my friend, Fran.

 

Isn't it cool? I finished it up for her on my longarm machine and knew it was an excellent way to start off my new blog. You can see my previous blog about quilting by clicking here.

This is a big quilt, 110" x 115", and it was hard to get a picture of the whole thing :)

She paper pieced the cats and designed the layout herself. 

 

 

I love the paw prints around the border. 

 

Fran also had an idea for the quilting: an allover loop-de-loop with balls of yarn thrown around. A match made in heaven!

 

The motif helps tell the "story" of the quilt without overwhelming the top.

Before quilting

After quilting

Blue cat unquilted

Blue cat quilted

On the longarm

Front and a peak at the back

I used King Tut thread by Superior in Caravan and So Fine in Ginger in the bobbin (10 1/2 bobbins!) Fran did an amazing job on this quilt and I'm sure the lucky recipient will love it.

Meowl's well that ends well