Hawaiian Quilt and Christmas Eve Table Runner

I had two complete finishes this week and one almost finish that needs binding. 

Last Monday we ended up with a snow day from school.  It started out as a two hour delay, but was soon canceled.  To hide out from the storm I was in my basement quilt room.  I decided since I had a free day I would tackle quilting my Christmas Eve tablerunner.  The kit was from Shabby Fabrics  I had done the layout and pressing at a retreat in November.

I layered the top and one layer of cotton batting and loaded my machine with Superior Monofilament thread on top and So Fine in the bobbin.   I free motioned around the edge of every single piece on the quilt!  With the Monofilament I could travel without having to stop and start a lot.  I finished that and then added a backing and quilting the dark sky background with swirls and the outer snow so it would lie flat.  Then on to the bias binding and embellishments and it was done!

The next day I started in on my pile of basted quilts.  I quilted a row robin quilt, but it is not bound.

Then I tackled my Hawaiian applique quilt.  This was a long term project.  I hand appliqued the blocks MANY years ago.  My original plan had not worked out and I put together 9 of the 13 blocks into this 54 inch wallhanging.  It sat and sat and sat some more.  I decided to do free motion echo quilting and it's not perfect but I like the effect.  The problem I ran into was I was echo quilting each block individually and didn't have sashing and I disliked how it looked at the seam.  Some were worse than others at looking disjointed. 

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My solution was to make a 1/2" strip and topstitch it over the seam as a pseudo narrow sashing.  I used my 1/2 inch bias tape maker my mother in law had given me at least 25 years ago and I had never used!  I used straight grain fabric though since there wasn't any curves.

 Here is my finished quilt!  I love it now!  It has been through the washer to remove glue stains.  All but one came out.

 I am linking up with Design Wall Monday.