Autumn tablerunner inspired by LouLou's Bundle

Over the last two years I’ve made several projects from Lori Holt’s wonderful book, "Farm Girl Vintage." I’m happy to report that I finally made one of Lori’s small Harvest tablerunners.  This has been on my “must make” list since the first night I sat down in my comfy chair with a cup of tea and enjoyed Lori’s book, cover to cover. I’m so happy with how this runner turned out.

I have to give credit to LouLou’s Fabric Shop for inspiring me to finally make this autumn runner. LouLou’s offers weekly custom-curated fat quarter bundles (LouLou’s Bundles). When I saw the August bundle pictured below, I knew I had to have it.  But it wasn’t until I had the bundle in my happy little hands that inspiration truly struck. I pulled out Lori’s book, found the Furrows block tablerunner photo on page 106, and (I’m pretty sure) squealed aloud.  Woo hoo!

I decided to make the small version of the Harvest tablerunner, which calls for twelve 6 1/2” Furrows blocks. My LouLou Bundle included eight fabulous fall prints to get me started, and I decided to add four prints from my stash: three neutrals and one more butterscotch orange.  I organized these twelve into six pairs, and began making the flying geese. I followed Lori’s clear instructions, but I enjoyed the creative aspect of putting the fabrics together and arranging the layout.

I quilted my tablerunner using Aurifil 2214 (Golden Honey) 50wt. It's a soft golden orange that I’ve used before with Halloween and autumn projects.  It must be a “Taunja” color, because it seems to blend with so many fabrics in my stash!

My quilting pattern is simply a 1 1/2” square grid, but it gives the illusion of rectangles and smaller squares due to the seams of the flying geese.  Another advantage to this “offset” quilting pattern is that none of my stitched lines fell “in the ditch” which I typically avoid, especially on a small project where I’ve pressed most seams open.

While I was having fun taking photos of my new runner, it came to mind that this might look pretty darn cute with my new Pumpkin Sky pillow. The morale to this story is, if you see a fat quarter bundle that you love, BUY it! It will most likely look lovely with the other things you already have around your house, even if you don’t initially have a plan for it!

I hope you’ll visit LouLou’s Fabric Shop and check out the weekly LouLou Bundles and all their other terrific products.  Shop owner Jamie has a great eye for pulling together pretty bundles, and she also goes the extra mile to help her customers create their own custom bundles!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today!  I hope you get carried away buying fat quarter bundles to your heart’s desire . . . and sewing them up, of course!

~Taunja