table runner | Lori Miller Designs

In the May 2020 issue of American Quilter Magazine, you will find my latest design. It is a stunning table topper made with Princess Palette Batik by Mirah. This palette of batiks acts like blenders and is the perfect combination of colors for the design. This sunny Pineapple represents warm welcomes, celebration and hospitality and is perfect to welcome guests or gift to a friend.

I designed my topper in EQ8 Quilt Design Software. It is a foundation paper pieced design that would be great for an intermediate quilter or a dedicated beginner. I find starting on paper pieced projects that are smaller is a great way to try out this technique.

I was able to import the Princess Palette Batik fabrics right into EQ8 to mock up a realistic picture of my design. I could try different colors before I had to cut into that precious fabric. Batik by Mirah generously provided all of the fabrics. They have some beautiful fabrics that you should definitely consider for your next project. Batik by Mirah

I used foundation patterns created with #EQ8 to make each of the eight sections of the quilt.

It is a lot of stitching, pressing and cutting, but the result really starts to take shape.

Here, I am trimming the sewn foundation.

Then I stitched the four sections of the block together.

The individual blocks come together to create one pineapple. There are 8 blocks needed to make the topper.

I sewed four blocks together to make half the topper and then stitched the two halves together.

I use a water soluble pen to mark the quilting designs on the topper. I wanted to stitch little feathers in the background.

Then I stitched cross hatching in the pineapples.

Here is a closeup of the quilting after it was finished and washed. I love that crinkly texture!

I would love to see your version, just tag me on facebook or instagram @lorimillerdesigns

Happy Stitching!

In July, the Detroit Area Modern Quilt Guild hosted Lynn Harris from The Little Red Hen for a class on strip piecing using techniques from her new book. She also gave a wonderful trunk show of all of her scrappy quilts which were just beautiful. I grabbed my box of orange scraps and a nice heathery grey fabric to work with.

Lynn’s book is called Every Last Piece and she showcases 12 wonderful quilts that will use up your scrap stash.

Here are the strip pieces that we made in class using Lynn’s technique. Make sure you have a lot of starch on hand! Mine are the obvious orange ones.

Here is our wonderful group of quilters. Lynn is second from the left in the back and I am second from the right in the back. The rest are all of my DAM girls.

I grabbed all of my orange strip pieced squares and decided to make half square triangles withe the heathery grey fabric.

I decided to make a runner for the Library Table I inherited from my Mother-in-Law. It needs some love and care on the finish, so until I can make that happen, a pretty little runner should cover those up nicely. I started to put them together in rows.

Using my trusty Bernina 630, I put on my BSR foot and started free motion quilting lines through the orange strips keeping them parallel to the seams and kind of even. You don’t have to be perfect with this stitch and it still looks good.

Here you can see all of the lines quilted in the orange strips, the texture is just amazing. Then I wanted to put something in the triangle. I wanted a design that was a bit more modern than feathers but was not having much luck finding what I wanted. Then I found inspiration from Lori Kennedy of The Inbox Jaunt. She had some sun and stars patterns that I adapted to the triangle. She has tons of wonderful quilt designs and tutorials on her blog and I really love her name :).

Here is the sun pattern up close. It is perfect to go with the orange rays in the strip piecing. I also liked that it was a continuous design, I just quilted from triangle to triangle in a row without stopping. Everyone is just a bit different, I did not even mark or plan too much, just quilted. I really like it.

Here is my finished runner, all quilted, washed and crinkly with texture. I think it makes my library table look fabulous too. I used a bunch of orange scraps but why does the box seem just as full when I was done as when I started?? HA HA Happy scrap quilting!