Juggling Summer Table Runner for Mom

August 15th is my mom's birthday and every year I like to make her birthday gift.  She just received the package and opened it so now I can finally post about it!

This year I saw this project by Bari J and I loved the pieced pattern and thought it would be perfect for a project for my mom.  I sent my mom a bunch of photos of fabric collections (at least 24 different ones) and had her pick which line was her favorite.  She picked Juggling Summer by Zen Chic for Moda and when the jelly roll arrived I knew it was perfect for my mom.  The colors and prints in the collection are beautiful, and the main fabric of the collection has this yummy red/orange color that is exactly my mom's color.

I had a lot of fun making the table runner.  I lucked out and noticed on the blog post by Bari J that someone mentioned that you can use a quilter's binding tool as a template to make the friendship braid instead of having to measure and cut the angles.  (You can see a video demo here).  I happen to have a quilter's binding tool so that made the process smooth and easy.  I'm not sure how many I cut, but I definitely didn't use the whole jelly roll.  In actuality I probably only used 1/2 of the jelly roll.

For the backing of the table runner I bought 1 1/2 yards of Moda Bella Solid in Betty Orange (which coordinated exactly with the collection- thanks Moda!).  The orange also happens to be the yummy red/orange color that I mentioned is my mom's color, so it worked out perfectly.

I free-motion quilted it using the "geometric allover" pattern as described by Angela Walters in her book "Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters" (which I am LOVING by the way).  It was simple and I was able to get into the flow of doing it relatively easily.

As a bonus gift I also made a set of 6 coasters to go with the runner.  I used some of the scraps from the table runner and the Betty Orange for the back of these.  Since I didn't want to fuss with binding I made these by sewing the top and bottom of the coasters right sides together with a layer of batting on the bottom of the stack (so it went batting, coaster bottom RSU, coaster top WSU) and then turned them right sides out and hand stitched the opening closed.

For the quilting on the coasters I did the same "geometric allover" pattern on them and loved the way they turned out.

I also made my mom a set of "Cool Downs" for her to use in the hot Tennessee sun.  One with two of the leftover strips from the jelly roll and one in the same gnome print I used in the tutorial.  "Cool Downs' are new to her so I hope she enjoys using them!