being "old" & a Christmas quilting tutorial

EDIT: Sorry, but all of the images originally posted in this tutorial were lost in the great blog-tastrophe of 2014. Please email me if you have questions!

Sometimes, I feel really old. (You are really old, fo' real!) I don't quite know what it is, but at the ripe age of 24, I have already caught myself saying the following: 

"Do they really need to listen to their music that loud?"
"Most attractive man I can think of? Cary Grant."
"It was a great weekend, I spent most of it quilting!"
"Your Christmas music is weird…can we just listen to some Bing already?"
"It's a nice apartment, but I really wish I could have a garden."
"Yes! I'd love to join your recipe-swap!"
"Oh, if her father only knew she was out in that! (tut tut)"

I could go on, but I've probably made my point. Despite my occasional general silliness, I'm beginning to believe that my "inner child" is more likely a woman named Edna who enjoys rocking chairs and keeps Werther's candies in her sweater pocket. However…I do have this cool blog, so that's young and hip, right? And hopefully that statement isn't invalidated by the use of "young and hip"? I hope….

Well, to embrace my inner Edna, here are some exciting quilting projects I worked on last weekend, just in time for Christmas! First is a 3 block table runner that I (naturally) forgot to take pictures of while doing.

And now, an actual "tutorial" for a square table runner I made for my mom with the extra fabric from my table runner. I've seen these called "fan blocks" and "Dresdens" so I'm not sure which it technically qualifies as. First off, I made a template from some heavy stock board, then cut out all my pieces.

Next, sew each set of four together with a 1/4" seam allowance. Once you have (4) four-piece fans, sew all of those together to complete the fan or Dresden or whatever.

Since I wasn't quite sure how to attach it all to the backing, I cheated and use iron-fusible interfacing on the points.

Then, iron that down on your background fabric and use a circle of interfaced fabric for the center. Make a sandwich with some batting (I used heirloom cotton) and backing, and pin it all together. 

Sew it up, trim off your excess batting, and then fold the backing up and double fold it to create a "cheater binding". I know this is a bit vague but I didn't take pictures and I don't really feel qualified to try to explain that bit (maybe in another tutorial). Add a bit of hand embroidery to sink it all together, then voila, you have a square table runner that looks much better in-person than the photo but you're still gonna put it up online anyways because you did it!

My mom loves it and put a gold candle in the middle and it looks lovely. Yay for fun projects!

Even though I'm sure in a few years, I'll look back and be completely aghast that I even put this online. But hey, you have to start somewhere, right?

Anyways, I know this is a long post but I'd love to hear if you've ever felt out of place with people your own age. Please share (it'll make me feel less awkward about "Edna" – haha)!


Edit: Don't forget to check out my new tab at the top for some great quilting blogs & resources!