Starting the Modern Christmas Table Runner

The boys have gone to their dads' for 5 days. That's the arrangement we have - we have them for 5 days at a time. I know it's an odd number (true!), we felt a week was too long and any less time too short. 5 days is pretty good - one day is handover but then you have 4 days / evenings to catch up with the shopping, tidying, cleaning, occasional socialising ( v occasional). Then when you do have the boys you can concentrate on them. That's the ideal. Sometimes I don't achieve it as I fall asleep on the sofa, too tired from trying to do it all.

So today I had the whole day to myself. Not housework ( I loaded the dishwasher), or cleaning ( I swept the floor), or shopping ( I did nip out to pick up a rug I'd ordered). Yes, a whole day to myself. It almost turned into a whole day tidying as it took me most of the morning to find my sewing machine cable. I was beginning to panic. The last sewing I had done was in the living room but could I find it? In the end after looking in lots of other places I found it in a drawer in the same living room, tangled up with the wii controllers.

So, off to the sewing room. Last night I had decided to try piecing regular 5 pointed star. Unfortunately my attempt is not very regular, and I have unpicked some of it and will try to correct it. But I don't think it will work because of my seam placement - the star is one big triangle as the central pentagon and 2 points, and 3 small triangles attached. It draws the eye to any imperfection.

So, plan B.

I sorted through my books, magazines and a desk diary looking for inspiration.

Now I am having a go at 2 stars I found on the internet.

I can't go into too much detail re the colours I'll end up using, or the placement of the stars, if I end up using them as my swap recipient may be snooping.

Another annoying thing is that I had to draw the pattern for paper piecing one of the stars as the one I printed off wasn't quite the 4" it said it would be. So then I photocopied my sketch onto paper piecing paper and lo and behold - my photocopied sketch didn't measure 4"!!!. I have copied it on 101% as now it is nearly 4" so here's hoping any sewing inaccuracies will work in my favour.

I spent alot of last night reading my swap recipients blog and looking at flickr photos. What have I got myself into I wondered.

It was about 2 years ago that I signed up for my first swap. It was the Fall Mini Quilt swap so I think alot about Joan and Joans mini quilt alot as I drive past all the beautiful autumnal trees that I looked at 2 years ago, looking for inspiration. This is the mini quilt that I recieved from Anne.