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Color Mastery Table Runners offers:

• 12 table runner patterns, each 16×40″, featuring a different color each month
• 10 short instructional videos where Maria shows you time-saving and accurate piecing and quilting techniques
• 10 presentations offering professional quilt designers tips on each month’s color and how they used them in their own projects
• table runner projects are great for mini-lessons and no UFOs
• the most beautifully decorated table in your neighborhood!
• great opportunity for group projects, bee groups, and quilt guilds. Enjoy a color challenge with different results each month

Click here to learn more about the table runner series:

I Want to Master Color

A simple red and cream color palette, enhanced with turquoise Christmas ornaments.  The basic red and cream allow you to update this classic runner every year with a new set of colored Christmas ornaments every year.  Turquoise was 2010’s color of the year, but next year I’ll do something completely different.  That’s the beauty of this runner:  it stays contemporary and classic, but changing the ornaments with each Christmas season.

Christmas Tree also doubles as an Advent Tree, with 24 branches and ornaments.  Today, December 1, it starts out decked completely with all 24 ornaments, one of which will be removed each day, counting down until Christmas.  I’m writing on the back of my ornaments, listing Bible verses, community service projects, and where to find treats scattered around the house.

Next year I get to decide what ornament shapes to trim Christmas Tree with: will they be gingerbread men?  Angels?  Stockings?  Stars?  The possibilities are endless!

To order the Color Mastery Table Runners enhanced e-pattern. click here: I Want to Master Color

Every Thanksgiving I long for a way to permanently record our blessings.  As often as I teach my children the lesson of gratitude and try to practice it myself, the daily carpool, school, work, dinner, and errands tend to take over, and we forget.  Here is a simple way to remember, record, and reflect.

The tree starts out bare, just branches, trunk, and buttons.  During our Thanksgiving day with extended family, we’ll catch up with stories of loved ones lost, children who’ve sprouted so tall you barely recognize them, and hugs and kisses all around.  As we cook, catch up, and enjoy time with those we love so much, we’ll begin adding leaves to the tree.

We’ll each write down on a leaf, with a gold metallic marker, what we’re grateful for this sign, sign and date it.  As more and more family members add their blessings, the leaves begin to accumulate.

Then, before we all sit down to the meal, everyone will add their gratitude leaf to the tree, until it’s overflowing with blessings.

Enjoy your loved ones this Thanksgiving holiday.  Cherish the time together, and continue to remember how richly you’ve been blessed with November’s Blessing Tree pattern.

Here’s a hint for next month:  count the branches on the tree.  Hhhmm, would be great for December, too, wouldn’t it?  Stay tuned and I’ll show you how to turn the Blessings Tree into an Advent Tree for Christmas.

To order the Color Mastery Table Runners enhanced e-pattern. click here: I Want to Master Color

August’s featured color is blue-green, the hottest color of 2010.  Petite Pineapples combines tradition with trend, juxtaposing 19th century-style hand applique with trendy blue-greens of 2010.  This sweet runner uses a clean color palette of teal, aqua, brown, and cream, and bids a fond farewell to summer.  Not a hand-applique fan?  Happy for you, this project is machine-applique friendly.

Petite Pineapples also shows you how easy it is to get a completely different look by changing just one color.  This runner uses exactly the same fabrics as July’s Christmas Cabin, only I’ve exchanged teal for red.  By making one small change, I completely transformed this color scheme, and you can too.  I show you how.

The dogtooth border is a classic hand-applique treatment, and I show you an easy way to cut and applique it, getting perfectly sharp points without any worries.  Subscribers to the pattern series get exclusive access to a video on how make this border, so you can follow along with me.   The freemotion wavy echo quilting design is simple to execute but impressive in the final runner, and I outline exactly how to do it.

Petite Pineapples Pattern Update:  $5.95 (delivered early and automatically to pattern series subscribers – keep reading!)  Add to Cart

If you can’t get to the quilt shop to select your own fabrics, no worries.  I’m offering a Petite Pineapples kit as well.  It’s best to choose your own fabrics for your color palettes, but we all have those times when life gets too busy and we just can’t get to it.  I’d rather you be able to do the lesson with a kit than not at all.

Petite Pineapples Kit: $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

In addition to learning how to applique the Petite Pineapples block and coordinate a fresh color palette, you’ll also discover how to:

• cut and place applique motifs improvisationally, 19th century-style
• make the applique process effortless with my Applique Checklist
• make an impressive dogtooth border with my step-by-step instructions and video
• quilt a freemotion wavy echo design for stunning results

So not only do you get a sophisticated and new original design, you update your skills as well.

Learn New Techniques

Improvisational cutting and placement are new to many quilters who rely on 21-century techniques that focus on precision, precision, precision.  This approach allows you the freedom and flexibility to give each block it’s own unique charm and eccentricities.

If you’ve only relied on freezer paper or fabric glue, let me introduce you to the world of needle turn applique by eye.  It’s a wonderfully relaxing technique that gives each applique motif an exceptional look while harmonizing with the project as a whole.

If you’ve been intimidated by dogtooth borders in the past, or always wanted to try one, this is your chance.  I give you a no-fail technique that details the process, step-by-step.

To order the Color Mastery Table Runners enhanced e-pattern. click here: I Want to Master Color

July’s featured color is red, in a festive Christmas table runner, as requested by my loyal Color-of-the-Month e-pattern subscribers. They wanted plenty of time to complete their Christmas runner so they could enjoy it for the entire holiday season.  Christmas Cabin uses the traditional red as its main color, but the aqua and cream are anything but expected.  I was inspired by the retro Christmas villages of my childhood, complete with the chapel and town buildings my Mom lovingly placed under our tree every year.

Pantone has declared turquoise as the 2010’s color-of-the-year, and you’ll discover the difference between it and it’s cousins aqua, teal, jade, and other related blue-green colors and which is appropriate for your next quilt palette.  It’s easy to get these closely related colors confused, but not after you make this sweet holiday treat.

You get my original block Mountain Cabin, inspired by the Appalachian foothills of my home, along with the Snow Forest block, which together make a peaceful and charming holiday scene.

Christmas Cabin Pattern Update:  $5.95 (delivered early and automatically to pattern series subscribers – keep reading!) Add to Cart

If you can’t get to the quilt shop to select your own fabrics, no worries.  I’m offering a Christmas Cabin kit as well.  It’s best to choose your own fabrics for your color palettes, but we all have those times when life gets too busy and we just can’t get to it.  I’d rather you be able to do the lesson with a kit than not at all.

Christmas Cabin Kit: $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

In addition to learning how to piece the Mountain Cabin block and coordinate a fresh color palette, you’ll also discover how to:

• make a yo-yo wreath for the cabin front
• make Flying Geese without bias seams
• quilt a wood grain design on the cabin walls and roof

So not only do you get a sophisticated and new Christmas design, you update your skills as well.

Learn New Techniques

Flying Geese traditionally have two bias edges that make them difficult to piece accurately, but I show you a technique that eliminates the bias edges for perfect Flying Geese every time.  The yo-yo makes for a decorative wreath, with a button sewn in the middle for a finishing touch.

Forget quilt as desired!  I’ve included quilting designs, the very ones I used in my own project, that give Christmas Cabin wonderful texture. The quilting is the finishing touch that enhances the runner design and gives it a truly sophisticated look.

To order the Color Mastery Table Runners enhanced e-pattern. click here: I Want to Master Color