{in a bind}

Patchwork binding. What was I thinking?

I cut out hundreds of 2x4s, but still had to go back twice and cut more. Stitching them together was the fun part, but attaching the binding was an absolute nightmare. I'm a total binding noob (as my brother would say) anyway, but trying to do mitred corners with a four inch wide strip of patchwork was actually impossible. Not just messy, but standing up like a basket. So, snip snip snip, I cut the whole strip of binding in half, and traded in bigger squares of patchwork round the edge for corners I could live with.

(Plus, I now have a bonus strip of 2" wide binding to use on something else. Score!)

So, what actually is it, you ask? Well, it's a birthday table runner for Tilly.

But there's a twist. 

I'm going to ask all of our party guests this year to sign it, and then I'll stitch over their names. And then I'm going to ask everyone who celebrates her second birthday with us next year to sign it, and on and on for every birthday, until we have one piece of fabric with every single birthday guest's name embroidered onto it.

I'm thinking I'll use a different colour of thread for each year, or perhaps have a different section of the runner for each year. The exact details aren't worked out yet. But the binding is, and after that, everything will seem like a piece of (birthday) cake...