Christmas Joy Runner Tutorial

I finished assembling the Christmas Joy runner made from a charm pack of Moda Kate Spain's "Joy" fabric (25" x 48"). I decided to make snowball blocks from the pinwheel blocks, because it reminded me of Christmas candy or bauble shapes. Quite fun and festive and easy to make! Here are the ingredients needed to make this runner and basic instructions:

Ingredients: 

• 1 charm pack (you need 40 5"x5" squares - 2 squares of each print)
• 0.5 yard of solid white fabric for the background
• 0.25 yard of a coordinating print for the border
• 0.5 yard of fabric for binding
• 1 yard for the backing (it will have to be pieced) or if you want it whole then use 1.5 yards.

Method (using 1/4" seams):

• Select 2 coordinating prints to make each snowball block, make sure one is dark and one is light to create enough contrast, and that you have 2 charm squares of each print.
• Halve each charm square (5"x5") diagonally - thus you will obtain 4 half square triangle blocks from each two same print charm square blocks.
• Make the pinwheel blocks as follows:

• Cut 40 3"x3" square blocks from the white background fabric for the snowball corners.
• Make snowball blocks from each square pinwheel block as follows:

• Cut 6 x 1.5" strips from your background fabric across the width of the fabric
• Cut the 1.5" strips into 15 x 9" segments and 6 x 21.5" segments
• Assemble pairs of snowball blocks by joining them to a 9" x 1.5" strip segment, and then also add a 9" strip segment to the exposed parallel edges. (See finished runner above).
• Then join the pairs of snowball blocks to each other with the 21.5"x1.5" strip segments, also add a 21.5"x1.5" segment to the top and bottom of the snowballs on the edges.
• Cut 3 x 2.5" border strips from the coordinating print across the width of the fabric. 
• Cut one of the 2.5" strips into 2 x 21.5" segments and use the remaining fabric to lengthen the other segments so that you will obtain 2 x 48.5"x2.5"  strips for the borders on the long sides. 
• Attach the short (21.5"x2.5") border strips to the centre panel first, and then the long (48.5"x2.5") border strips to the length.
• You will need about half a yard of fabric for the binding and at least 1 yard for the backing.
• The amount of batting will depend on the batting width.
• Finished size of the runner should be about 25" x 48".

Here is the finished, quilted runner: