Shoo Fly Table Runners

In April and May this year, I went on my trip to the states. Firstly I visited with my wonderful friend Linda in San Jose, and then I accompanied her and four of her quilt group friends to Paducah. It was the most wonderful trip, and I had the best time. Before I left, I decided I wanted to make a small gift for Linda and her four friends that I would be travelling with.

After making the scrappy baby quilt, I had a lot of the cutaway pieces from the star points, so I chain pieced them together to form half square triangles. I had been making similar table runners to the ones pictured for some time, but with log cabins. Knowing that the shoo fly block would use up many of the half square triangles, it seemed like the perfect block to use in a scrappy table runner. I had to make just a few more half square triangles, and cut the setting triangles. I have had the applique cheater cloth in my stash for some time, and it seemed like the perfect offset for the blocks.

The back of the table runners was also from my stash. One is a toile I've had sitting around for ages, and the other is a scrap half yard I had no idea what to do with. I don't precisely remember, but I may have pieced the batt too! I had fun quilting them with a free-motion peacock design, and Cheryl from my favourite quilt store outlined the applique for me as I was just too chicken! Thank you Cheryl! If you look carefully, you can see that even the binding was pieced from my scrap 2" stash!

Two of Linda's friends received these as gifts, and they were so surprised and thrilled!