Martha's Madeira and Bias Trim Table Runner

 
  The summer night is like
 perfection of thought.
                                ~ Wallace Stevens

I love this project, and it is already sitting on my kitchen table; it will eventually go into the dining room.
This project was difficult for one reason....the danged pattern.  If I had just looked back at the drawing I could have drawn out a better template, but that thought didn't occur to me so I had a set of little curves where I should have little angles...sigh.


   Once again I used  fabrics from my stash.  The project was intended to be stitched in linen, so I used a heavier weave oatmeal linen with black linen accents.  The outside border, Madeira Applique, is stitched wrong side to right side, trimmed, and then turned to the front.  When it came time to stitch it down, I used Isacord Embroidery thread and a 100/16 wing needle.  I sampled various sizes before settling on the 16; I liked the size of the hole where the needle penetrated.
   I had a little trouble turning the corners with the pinstitch. I would leave the needle down to pivot and usually it seemed to work best when the needle was in the left needle position as I started in a nw direction.
   The black linen motif in the middle is stitched from bias strips cut at 1.25 inches, then run through the Clover Bias Maker.  I used a lace shaping board as directed, and then stitched it down with a 100/16 wing needle and embroidery thread to match the background linen.  I  experimented with different colors and weights, and was happy with the ones that I chose
                                                            I was not quite as happy with the shape of the inner motif, but that is because the pattern was sent over the internet.  Enlarging and flipping it was not as easy as I had thought it would be, and as I finished I figured out that I could have
                                        just drawn the side points freehand.

So the table runner is on my kitchen table and soon to be mover into the a position of honor on the dining room table.  Black linen napkins will make a nice addition.