Make a Stained Glass Table Runner Quilt

I really love the modern aesthetic. And I love the stain glass look, but I don't love working hard. I like working quick and easy and simple. And if I can combine two steps into one step I'm even happier. However, that being said I love to make bias tape or non-biased tape just turned edge tape. For this technique this is a table runner that can be easily made into a bed size quilt even you just need to decide on the size of your large block and I decided on eight inches and then whatever your large block is, you're gonna cut your small blocks half that size and then just add in your scene allowance. So my blocks were cut eight and a half and four and a half. After that you can put them together in a myriad of ways as long as you can join them in rows. So you can see that this is a portion that was all sewn together two have these sewn together, two sewn together, sewn to this. And here you can see that I'm not gonna do a Y scene there. So this is the unit here. And then that got sewn onto that Here these got sewn onto one side. These got sewn into one side and they got sewn together. So as long as you can sewn them together then you can put them together in a myriad of ways. These blocks are simplest whole block of color and I make non-biased turned edged, courting, or strips. I have some fabric glue. It's a permanent fabric glue but you could also use a temporary one. I have a bias tape maker, a pencil and a ruler For the bias tape maker I'm not sure what the instructions say but I like to cut my strips just a half inch. I take the tip of this one side of the strip and cut it at an angle and I inserted into the tool. And then I use the tool the opposite direction that their instructions tell you to because I think it works better. They didn't ask me when they wrote the instructions but I think it works better. So the tool itself has a little handle and then it's got a slot and then the fabric comes out in the slot that's here is where you're going to insert your fabric strip. Now, if your fabric strip has a right or wrong side make sure that you do it in here right side up. Then you need a poking device to push it through this slot here and through that slot. You wanna just pull out a little bit. They want you to use it. What I consider upside down this way. I think it's hard to use that way. I like to use it the opposite direction. I just pulled my fabric strip out. I like to it this way. I feel like I have a better grasp of how this fabric strip is moving through there and I can keep it in the middle better which means I'm gonna have even amounts on both sides that are turned under. The trick to making this work is that the tip here should drag along your ironing surface and the tip of your iron here should be in contact with the tip of the tool at all times. If that takes place, you'd be amazed at how perfect your bias is and how quickly you make bias. Or in this case non-biased strips that are turned that we're going to use to make our stained glass. Whoops! Pulled that through too soon and we'll pull it out to where it was turned maybe, or maybe we'll just iron it from the back and re-position it like so. So if you pull it out like I just pulled it out, reposition it and you can get started again. There we go. Okay. So repositioned it on the ironing board and we're gonna push that through and keep making that bias. If I end up with a kind of a gnarly point there in the middle that's okay. Which I did. I'll cut it out. I like to use a lot of steam when I do this if possible, it gives me a much tighter strip to work with and then I don't have to iron it from the back Okay. So I'm gonna go ahead and cut out my damaged area here. So I don't accidentally use that or think I can use it right there and now I'm ready to go. I've got plenty of bias to start with. When I use these strips this size, I could get one of these blocks and two small blocks from one long strip of bias the 45 or non bias, the 45 inch width. So that helped me decide how many of these I needed to cut. Then I needed another five of these long strips to cover all of the seams after I sewed the blocks together. So the way this works at this point, you're simply going to draw on your fabric some straight lines to use as a guide. So that's where the ruler and the pencil comes in. I'm simply gonna set the ruler down, make it true and draw a straight line all the way across. I almost always like to include a line that crosses over my first line. So I'm gonna do that. I don't wanna crowd the piece. So maybe I'll add one more line here. So I've got just the three lines, which most of mine have two, three or four every once in a while there's a little bit more. And now my fabric glue comes into play. I am going to just run it along the line. So, and I want just a very fine bead of fabric glue along the line that I drew. And that's why I don't care what I draw the line with because it's gonna be covered up entirely any marking tool. Now this line here is gonna be tucked under this one because it doesn't go over. So I'm gonna go ahead and do the glue on that one too, and lay it down first. I'm gonna take a piece I've either trimmed the end or it already had a trimmed end and I'm just simply gonna lay it down so that it is about in the middle of the middle of the turn cord is laying on top of that glue. I would not measure it but if you feel like you wanna make sure it's true on your square go ahead. I just eyeball it. Cut off any excess and save it. Coz it might be long enough for a small block. Now I'm gonna do this next long one. I don't worry about any strands or bits of thread that are hanging out I'll take care of those later. And again, I'm just gonna kind of eyeball that it's straight Straight enough. And then my final piece. Now I call this at this stage instead of applicate, it's simply been glued in place and it's gonna stay in place for me until I do what I need to do to it. And that's gonna be a bone of contention for some of you you're gonna go with she does a what? and others of you are gonna go of course that's what she does. Coz I told you I don't like to waste my time. So I don't wanna work twice. Now the average quilter would then say Oh, and then she applicates these strips down. No, I don't wanna do that. I'm gonna finish all my blocks with this step. Everything's glued in place. I'm gonna determine my layout and I'm gonna piece everything together. After I've pieced everything together, I'm going to layer my piece with backing and batting and I'm going to quilt as I applicate. So I'm going to top stitch in black thread along each edge here and that's all the quilting I'm gonna do. And I'm quilting and applicating at the same time. There's a whole trend called appliquilting. And that's what this is doing. We're applicating and quilting together. After I've got all of those appliquilted, then I go in and add the pieces in between. So when I sew these two blocks together, there's a seam there and I cover that seam. And when I, sew this these two units together, there's a seam there and I cover that seam. After I've glued all those pieces to cover the seams down, I go back in and do the same quilting technique with those. And then my quilting is done. This will get a very nice tight quarter inch finished binding that will repeat the quarter inch of all of the soldering, if you will in the stained glass. So it's a very simple technique, very easy to do quick and you get this wonderful, very modernistic, finished table runner. That's easy to throw into a throw size quilt, a bed size quilt. And it's very sturdy because you finished those edges. They're turned and they're quilted tightly. You could go in and do some quilting in the bet negative space here if you wanted to, if you thought it was something that you wanted to keep for heritage sake, I would. But if it's just something you're gonna use for several years and you wanna really maintain that stained glass look, I wouldn't, I'd call it a day. It's so much fun. It's so easy, give it a try.