Happy New Year to Everyone.
I've been busy with my sewing for some time. I retired from my volunteer work so that I could devote more to fixing up my house, and to my hobbies.
So I decided that I needed to put something atop all the flat wood surfaces that get dusty. I live in the high desert, so I live in a dust bowl. No matter how much I dust, a few hours later, it looks as if I never dusted. And the wood was starting to look dull, even with the furniture polish.
So I have started a new project of making table runners that cover all the exposed flat surfaces. Can't do anything for the sides, but at least the tops can be protected. Table runners are a lot nicer looking than covering them with paper or plastic.
Here's the second runner that I've completed. I did one last year by piecing together several 12 inch star patterns I did when I first started quilting. This one is my first eight pointed star attempt that wasn't made up of two triangle pieces. I followed the instructions in a new book I purchased, "Diamond Star Quilts" by Barbara H. Cline. I also watched a few YouTube videos.
One other video I watched was on how to eliminate fabric bulk where so many fabric points come together. There were several ways to accomplish this, but I decided on the easiest, which was to after sewing a part of a block, to turn the block over, and carefully snip a sliver triangle away on the 1/4 inch seam allowance on both ends, while also snipping off the little ears that you get when adding triangles. I still haven't learned how to eliminate the fabric bulk you get on the corners with the binding.
I used fabric that was given to me by a very generous person on our Forum. The Backing was just some extra from 108 inch. backing that I got when I did a larger quilt. I used Moda solids for the border and binding. I added free hand wavy lines on the gree border. And I again, did 1/4 inch quilting along all the pieced lines, using similar colours to the fabric. I think you can see that in the photo.