I love adding fabric to a room and to see how it can change the personality just by the pattern of the print or the colors in the fabric. Of course everyone is Chevron crazy these days. It's a great print that's a little bit more contemporary but can work in a home that could range from traditional to contemporary. I picked it up to try my hand at making a table runner for a girlfriend of mine who was having a birthday. She's got those Restoration Hardware colors going on in her house and I just hoped this might but something she'd like for one of her tables.
Click on any photo if you want to see it enlarged and read through before you start. I've included a few options at the end.
I started out with 3 yards of fabric. I like to have plenty on hand for cutting errors but if you don't like buying more than you need and hate waste, I'd suggest measuring your table and then add 1/2 a yard. For example, if you have a 6 foot table, ask them to cut you 2 1/2 yards.
I'm adding ruffles to either end of this runner so I also cut 2 5" pieces and then cut them 2x the width of what the final runner will be. I'm making this runner to be about 14" wide so I cut my ruffles 28" long.
I started by cutting my main long piece and cut it the length of the table + 10 inches because I wanted to have a little overhang on each end. This is just a preference of mine. I've seen table runners stop a foot short of either end of a table so cut the length however you prefer.
Since this print has a very obvious pattern that you pick up on, I ended up cutting at the tip of one of the chevron points and that was easy for me to follow along across the width of the fabric. For time sake, I cut my piece 28 inches wide so that the underside will be the same as the topside. I'm going to fold mine over so that one side is already done. (I like keeping it simple) You may want to use a less expensive fabric for the bottom liner instead of your selected home dec print since you aren't going to see it but I just used my print on both sides.
Once it was cut, I folded it in half along the length, right sides together and just pressed a light seam creating the edge and then pinned all along the open long side. I didn't press it too hard because I'm going to flip it and didn't want to be fighting a seam wanting to go the other way when I turn it right side out.
Next I just stitched down that long side. Both short sides are still open at this point.
Here I've flipped the piece right side out and this is when I'm turning that iron up to full heat and steam mode and giving it a good press.
Moving onto the ruffles. I took those pieces and pressed seams upward along the bottom and then along the short side pieces.
I serged my edges then just stitched these edges down.
Face your runner right side up and pin this ruffled piece placing right sides and pinning first at each end. One step I haven't shown is creating this ruffled piece. I did it the easy way. I turned my machine's tension all the way up to a 10 and lengthened my stitch as much as I could to a 5. As you feed a piece through your machine you will see it start to gather. This didn't create a ruffle that was the perfect fit to my runner but that's fine. This piece was too big but we'll make it fit. I start by pinning each end piece to either edge. Find the middle of the ruffle and pin that down to the center of the runner and then just add 2 more pins by manually bunching the rest of the ruffle up and pinning down.
Stitch the ruffled piece down.
I like things serged so no messy edges are on display. **
For my final step, I pressed that serged edge up so that it created a nice tailored ruffle.
Once you are done, add it to your table, step back and admire! This is such an easy way to instantly change the look of your room by changing out one piece. If you look at my previous post when I painted these chairs, you'll see how my breakfast table normally looks. I have a neutral colored runner and this blue and white chevron really changes to feel of the room.
**So there are so many different ways you can create this same look. I happen to have a serger so I'm able to easily add a ruffle and serge off messy edges. If you don't, you can always press the short edges on either end of your long runner piece in and then nest that ruffle inside and attach it. You will have encased those raw edges. If you do that, add an extra inch when cutting your long piece at the beginning to account for pressing those edges in otherwise you'll take from the overhang.
It's also optional to line it on the backside. If you want to make this super easy, just cut this as a single layer of fabric and simply hem all the edges. Easy right? Happy Sewing!
