Strata Star / Spinning Star / Swirling Star / Card Trick table runner

Whilst visiting local quilt teacher, Annie du Toit, last year, I saw an absolutely gorgeous runner on her table made in various shades of blue, arranged from light to dark.  So, when I stumble across this free tutorial on YouTube, I was so excited to realize it was the same pattern.  After surfing some more, I found this free pattern as well.

The video as well as the tutorial don't do this pattern justice though.  Using 5 to 8 colors in shades from light to dark is the secret.  

When our quilting group talked about possible projects for this year, I suggested this project.  We all got to buying fabrics as getting 8 shades of a particular color locally, is rather a challenge.  But by shopping around we manage to get our fabrics together.

All got busy cutting WOF strips and sewing 5 strip sets.  As we used more colors than the pattern suggests, we cut our strips 1.5" wide instead of the proposed 2".  At our first meeting in January, we cut and stitched the large triangles and started to lay out our runners and oh my word, they all turned out absolutely gorgeous.  When we adjourned, all had to cut their small triangles and piece the top.

Today we added the backing and batting using the stitch and flip method to omit the use of a binding as there are quite a few corners.  All that remains now is to quilt the runners and our first project for the year is all done.  (Donna Jordan of Jordan Fabrics use the stitch and flip method on the majority of her table runners, so if unsure just watch this video.)

And now for the photo's...

First up is mine.  I used 7 colors and the runner measure 1m across.

And in no particular order, the other group members runners.

Marietjie

Angelina

Elsa

Rika

Frances

This was such a satisfying and extremely fast project which really went together super easy but looks very complicated.

Roosters

I embroidered two additional roosters for the kitchen, although there isn't really space for anymore.😃

Ronny Rooster was done in Jinny Beyer fabrics.

Design is from Inspiration Mutz and can be found here.

The rooster dangler is from SewAZ-Embroidery and can be found here.

Dish towels

I saw these beautiful designs a few months back and when Embroidery Library emailed me my discount coupon for my birthday, I bought them.  So, today I used them to decorate two dish towels.  

I also added a bit of lace and a little bow to each transforming an ordinary dish towel into a beautiful piece.  

Baby Statistics Bears

I bought this design from Ofnah two years ago and at long last started embroidering them. They are such a cute memory bear containing all the statistics of a newborn baby such as the date, time, length and weight as well as baby's name.  They are 30cm (12") tall.  

Floral Bear

I embroidered another Floral Bear to determine an asking price as well as the size.  When I originally embroidered one in October 2022 (this post refers) I wasn't expecting to start earning money by selling embroidered items as I was still employed at the time.  But it is such a cutie, I thoroughly enjoyed stitching another one.

Sitting up it measures 25cm and 33cm total length.

The pattern calls for fleece, but I prefer to stitch the bear on bridal satin.

The pattern does include a version for a boy as well and will look like this.

The pattern is available here from Louisa Meyer Originals.

Big Footed Friends

I received my first order for Big Footed Friends, an elephant and a lamb.   

Although the stitching time on the machine for all the parts is a mere half an hour, it takes a few hours to complete them.  They are completely made in the hoop, so one has to be careful to not catch the limbs in the body's seams.  I also slow the machine down as to help the foot go over the lumpy parts smoothly and to not get stuck as the whole toy could be ripped out of the frame, needles broken etc.

The designs are available from Dolls and Daydreams

Made from an Original Days and Daydreams ® Pattern

Granny's kitchen

I fell in love with this design from Kreative Kiwi Embroidery (which is currently on sale for $1.50) and decided to stitch a Granny to hang on the kitchen door to symbolize Granny's Kitchen.

It was such a joy to bring this beauty to life by playing with different fabrics and lace.  She was done in 6 hoopings and is 60cm tall.  She is completely reversible with different embellishments added on each side.