It is the time of the year I love making something for my home. A table runner for dining table was just what my home needs to make the few sessions of feast extra special and beautiful.
An up-cycled table runner from those home decor textile sample books I had would be perfect without spending $$$ on some good materials. I got them from a friend's workshop. You can either ask or buy from home decor showrooms for their discontinued profiles; go through your scrap fabrics; old clothes, cushion covers and curtains ; bargain corner of a textile shop.
I started by picking Christmas colors with red as major color. Pre arranged them on the floor for a beautiful combination before cutting them to the right sizes for stitching. Here I designed a simpler combination for one side and a more decorative on the other, making it a two sided table runner. An easy guide for a good combination is mixing organic motifs, geometric patterns; plain, small motifs and larger patterns. Besides colors and patterns, I have with me different textures materials too. It takes a good control over stitching materials in different weights and textures.
The idea length of a table runner would be two feet longer than table length, allowing each end with one foot drops to the side. The width would be based on the available space after setting up the two plates of opposite sides. The width of the table runner must be wide enough to place a dish on it.
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| Glass beads from the Malaysian indigenious people |
Most of the luxurious home decor materials are made with natural fibers which required dry cleaning. Table runner on dining table gets stained easily and required frequent wash. I am not planning to pay for dry cleaning. Therefore, careful selection is important. Red usually runs. Avoid mixing red with very light colour especially plain fabric when little stain made obvious. Best to match with material has stain resistant like the stripes material I used above. I pre washed all the materials to test its colour fastness and also for them to shrink according to their percentages before joining them together.
The design being decided by the available materials and the finished work is a spontaneous and often a surprise. Love the warmness of the red!
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