'Heart'felt gift

The past few days I've been working on this sweet little table runner to give as a gift to a young couple who have been active at our church.  We met several years ago through Committee work there.  They will be married later this month.

The pattern is Winter Palace Table  Runner, a free pattern from Maywood Studio.  The center of the pattern is a 9 inch block, and I've used a paper pieced heart block.  This is such a great pattern for using up a UFO block on point!

A lesson learned here was that using two fabrics with relatively the same density of pattern, but in opposite colors, doesn't really give much contrast.  The eye just blends the white-on-navy and the navy-on-white.  I added some bright 1 1/2 inch buttons to bring out the contrasting blocks, and it helped. The runner is quilted with a combination of straight lines, waves and feathers and was a fun little project to make.