Challenging myself... 14 Days of LillyBelle

day one.

A note for myself so I can later confirm that I was right about my sanity... Dear Bari, sometimes you do stuff that's crazy just to prove you could do it. I don't know who you are proving this to. It may just be that you have issues. I am certain that all said and done, you will agree with me that this is one of those things. I'm telling you this now so that I can tell you, "I told you so!" later... and because I love you. I know you'd do the same for me. XO, Bari

Aherm... Now that that's out of the way...

For the next 14 days I have challenged myself to make and post a project from LillyBelle each day. Today I made this braided runner. I'll have you know that my sanity may have been in question this morning when I thought it was going to be a full size quilt and that I was going to quilt it myself before the day was over... I came to my senses at about 9am. You can rest assured I will send it to someone else for quilting too.

Makes a runner for a 6' table

Materials Needed:

In this runner I used the 10 prints from LillyBelle's Cool Sunrise Colorway.... it was nice how they divide up evenly with 5 light and 5 dark fabrics. You can get a pre-cut roll of LillyBelle strips here. It comes with two strips for each of the 20 pieces in LillyBelle... you will need three... so if you are going this route, then get two packs. You will have both colorways to use in other projects.

Otherwise... here's what you'll need...

1/4 yard each of 5 light fabrics

1/4 yard each of 5 dark fabrics

Rotary Cutter

Quilting ruler 

OR

Optional: Creative Grids 45 degree Trapezoid Strip ruler

Coordinating Thread (I used Aurifil 5006 from Pat Bravo's new set)

 

Cutting:

Cut all of the fabric into 2 1/2" x Width of Fabric strips

Subcut 6" pieces in pairs of dark and light, right sides facing (for a braided quilt you need mirrored images). Cut one end of each pair at a 45 degree angle. (see the diagram below)

If you are using the Creative Grids ruler, cutting instructions for using it are included with the ruler. But basically, it is a trapezoid template. You can watch a video here.

Piecing:

Join one and one dark trapezoid together and press. Then add anotehr light trapezod to the light size of this section. Press. Then add a dark trapezoid to the dark side of the section. Your row is finished when you have 35 pairs.

Create 2 addtional rows. Piece the rows together carefully matching the points. Trim the ends making sure your corners are trued up.

Quilt and bind as you wish.