I'm a Good Daughter-in-Law

No, really, I am. I'm not being sarcastic! My mother-in-law is 88 years old today. And she is brilliant. We didn't have a card for her (now I could get sarcastic about her son here), so I was in the car on my way to Tesco at 0730 this morning. We also didn't have a gift as of yesterday as himself mentioned that he hadn't ordered flowers to be delivered after all, because she was going to be out all day. Uh, yeah, with us!

Being silly and not thinking that I should just buy flowers in Tesco this morning, I went and made her a gift. I started about mid afternoon yesterday and finished it about twenty minutes before she arrived her this morning.

I took her to a quilt show locally last winter and she showed a preference for dark green. I do not have a lot of dark green in my stash. Actually, I have none that isn't Christmas related. I had a dig and came up with these instead. (Alright, one of them is technically a Christmas fabric, but not in an obvious manner.)

It was somewhere to start. I didn't have that much of either of these fabrics so needed to add more. I picked up on the reds, chose some more fabric and then started cutting and sewing. I was going to make a table runner and do the good old fashioned, I'm in a hurry, quilt as you go method.

For those of you who have not done this before, it is a lifesaver when you need a birthday present for your MIL and you need it quickly! You cut your backing fabric and the wadding to the size of runner that you wish to have - with a little extra for trimming. Cut your fabric into strips and beginning sewing them to the underlying layers. I was in a hurry so didn't do loads of photos for a tutorial but there are ones online already - or if you are really interested then feel free to ask me questions, but it really is incredibly simple.

Once you get started you just keep adding the strips to the left and right of the centre strips. Press them over and pin on another one.

Position and pin.

Sew.

Press.

Repeat until you have reached the ends of the wadding/backing fabric. Trim. Technically it is now quilted, but you could add more if you wished with your machine. Straight lines, FMQ or whatever you wished. I went for some hand quilting.

Then it was time for the sashing, which was machine finished so that this would be completed within the time constraints. I took the final photos out in the rain so they are what they are. Not brilliant but they will have to do. Sorry.

Approximately 16.5" wide x 38" long.

Forest green and wine red perle cotton hand stitching.

The backing fabric was from the same line as the green on white used on the front.

I may sound a bit ambivalent about this runner. Probably because I churned it out so quickly. Very little thought went into it, other then that it was for my MIL, not me. Therefore her tastes came into play, not mine. While I am pleased with the finished result, it is not my style or something that I would be making for myself. I might make something similar, but the fabric choices would most definitely be different and there would be more colour. I think we all know by now that colour floats my boat.

My MIL said she loved it. That is all that counts. And it was nice to be able to give her something unique on her birthday. It isn't easy shopping for an 88 year old, you know!

But we did take her out for an excellent lunch at the best Thai restaurant around. The girls too. They even behaved impeccably and were nice to each other. And made an effort with their appearance. That was their contribution to the day.

The princess in pink is the one who swears she is going to be a goth one day.
I just can't see it.
But she probably will and I dread it.
And I'll smile and act like it just doesn't matter.

I am too full of Thai food to contemplate eating dinner but inquiries into what is for dinner have already been made. Hhhmmff! Guess I am going to have to go dig around in the freezer. Please, please let there be some breaded fish in there.

Susan