Tumbling Table Runner

Tumbling Table Runner

When my mom asked if I could make her a table runner for her new home, my feelings were mixed.  While I was more than happy to make her the table runner, it meant that the quilt for our spare bedroom which I had been working since before Christmas would have to be put aside.

I showed her some fabric bundles to get an idea of what colours and patterns she would like.  She chose the Autumn Field fabric bundle from Art Gallery Fabrics.  I was excited for that, as I had already bought two of the Autumn Field fat quarter bundles for myself, and was happy to finally make something with it.


When thinking about the design for the table runner, I knew I wanted to do something that would be fairly quick and easy to make, but still look interesting.  I settled on using a 5 inch tumbler template I had bouth from Missouri Star Quilt Company, and the same idea as making a charm pack quilt to get the look.


I started by cutting a strip that was 5 inches wide from each of the fat quarters.  Using my tumbler template and my rotary cutter, I cut each strip into 4 tumbler shaped pieces.  This gave me 40 individual pieces of fabric, which I laid out into 10 rows of 4 pieces each.  However, I felt the table runner wasn’t quite long enough, so to add a little bit of length, I used some solid fabric in three different colours that coordinated with what I had.  I wound up with 13 rows of 4 pieces.


For my backing, I had some dark green fabric leftover from my Christmas quilting projects, and luckily, I had enough cotton batting leftover from other projects.  To quilt all of the layers together, I decided to Stitch in the Ditch lengthwise.  This created a nice wavy zig zag pattern on the back of the table runner.  I opted to use the green thread that matched the backing fabric for the top of the table runner.  I liked the idea of having a little bit of contrast on the top of the table runner with the green stitching.


I really love how this table runner turned out.  It was quick and easy to cut out my fabric pieces and sew everything together.  I recently got some mini charm packs and a 2.5 inch tumbler template.  I think I might have to make myself a tumbler table runner.

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