Another reason for my absence

This has been hanging over my head for at least 3 months. It isn't that I didn't know that it needed done. Oh, I knew in August. But true to form, I waited until the last minute to begin it. That sign language fabric is a pain to work with because each hand symbol must be cut out and reassembled from the panel. It would have been nice if they hadn't printed three of each symbol in a row. This was a door prize for the Travis County Services for the Deaf Fair (I hope that is the right name!) My daughter was in charge of one of the booths and needed a door prize. Guess who she volunteered to make it!

Which?

After an unacceptable amount of agonizing, I finally came upon the perfect pattern for a table runner I am making. I searched all of my books, files and computer and finally hit on this pattern from The Happy Zombie. (I'll explain this gift in another post but some of the fabrics may look familiar) It fits the bill in so many ways....fast and easy being the most important. After I made all the blocks I realized that this is not the best combo of fabrics with the border print. There is something very fussy about it all. Here are the various settings and inner border combinations.



I think I like this setting best. It gives the eye a place to rest. But which inner border? Plus in the last photo you will see yet one more inner border option. I didn't remember that fabric until after all the others were taken and didn't feel like re-doing them all.
But then there are these two settings. In the original, this one has appliques in the center light squares. I would use leaves (or maybe even quilt in a contrasting color) but as Aunt Janice would say. This looks, "Ehh!"
This is my least favorite. Although it looks good in the picture it is sorta lacking something. I think it's not wide enough to really show the streaks of color. It just looks fussy to me. However if I do this pattern I am going to quilt leaves in the light streaks in contrasting thread.
This is just showing a third inner border option. Whatcha think? I cannot change the outer border. The entire runner is worked around it.

Finally a finish!

This is a version of the Jolly Jingle table runner that I'm not ashamed to post. That other one was just hideous! Mrs. S feels certain that she got the better end of the deal by waiting for this one! I actually saw the ugly one on Ms. A's table and it didn't look TOO bad! This one is much prettier though!