DIY-Table Runners

Whew! After a crazy week, diy weekend, and almost through another crazy ass week I’m beat! No more ranting about feminism for now, I promise. Besides I’ve put together an awesome tutorial for diy no-sew table runners (or table squares) that don’t suck!

Ok, start by finding some sweet, sweet drapey, gorgeously plum fabric...or whatever you are using.  Then calculate how much fabric you will need for your runners, don’t forget to include 1 inch per side for seams and about 10% extra if you’re like me and have crappy scissor skills. This method will only work for non-transparent, iron-able fabric. Also pick up some stitch-witchery, and fabric pins-available in craft stores, walmart, etc…

Lay out your pretty fabric flat on a big table or floor, and measure for each runner including however much you want for your seams. Seam width will depend on the width of your stitch-witch, I got 5/8 inch so my seams were 1 inch to be safe. Mark your cut lines with pins or tailor chalk and start cutting.

Working on an ironing board or large surface that can be ironed on, measure, fold and pin your seams, don’t forget to do this on the underside of the fabric! I did this by measuring in 1 full inch evenly on one side, then folding over the other side and laying a ruler down across so I could measure the actual runner width to keep it consistant.  Once I folded enough to get the runner width, I would pin, regardless if it was an inch or not, as long as it could hold the witch. 

After all your seams are pinned up iron over the edges (the plastic pin heads will not melt) to create a nice crisp edge. Take your pins out, you will now have nice 1 inch wide flaps all around your runner.

Cut pieces of the stitch-witch and tuck into your flaps.

Get a big piece of fabric (I used a pillowcase out of necessity), dampen it, and lay it over your target area of seam. Turn your iron on high, no steam and iron the damp fabric. This was the direction my stitch-witch gave me, not sure if they are all alike, read your package.

After ironing let the fabric cool for a second and then lightly tug at the finished seams, if any area pulls open, exposing non-melted witch, repeat the process until all seams are secure.

For the record I do not sew other than the occasional button replacement, so if I used any terminology that didn’t make sense, sorry.  These take me 1 hour each minimum, between measuring everything 3 times and re-ironing any non-melted witch.  To me they are worth it, I paid about $13 for my supplies, and I'm getting 8 13x72" runners that are exactly what I want.  Hopefully this helps you tackle homemade table runners that aren’t the tacky, shiny, rumpled, overpriced crap we are all so used to.

Table Runner Cost Breakdown:

Fabric: $10
Stitch Witch: $1.5
Pins: $1.5
Hours of my time:  incalculable

Total per runner: $1.625