How to Sew a Table Runner from Fabric Placemat Panels
Top of the morning! Tara Reed here to show you another way to use placemat panels for you home: make a placemat table runner. Put a placemat on either end and a coordinating fabric in the middle and you can make a statement piece for your any table in a few hours.
For this tutorial I used 2 of the 6 St Patrick’s Day placement images and one of the 3 shamrock prints from the March Placemat Panel I designed for Riley Blake Designs.
The width of the table runner is decided by the placemat so the finished width is 18 1/2″. You can make your runner any length you want with the fabric you put in between the 2 placemats. I measured my table and decided I wanted mine to be 80″ long.
Here’s how I made the Placemat Table Runner
SUPPLIES:
- 1 Placemat Panel
- 1 yard fabric for the front
- 1 1/3 yards fabric for the back
- 82″ x 19″ batting
- OPTIONAL: If you want to do traditional quilt binding you need 5 1/2 strips at 2 1/2″ x WOF. Sew together and press in half to create binding. You will need about 1/2 yard of fabric for the binding
First I chose the two placemats I wanted for either end of the runner. I decided to use two of the images with sayings: “In this house we create our own luck!” and “Friends and Family can always be found at the end of the Rainbow”.
TRIM the fabric panel with 1/4″ all the way around each design. After sewing they will be 11″ high for a total of 22″ of the 80″ length.
Then I chose the shamrock fabric on white for the center of the table runner and determined I needed 58 1/2″ long (the 1/2″ is for the seam allowance) x 18 1/2″ wide. I made this from 2 pieces of fabric, cutting a piece of fabric 29 1/4″ long and then trimming to 18 1/2″ wide.
CUT a piece of batting slightly larger than you need. I used 82″ x 19″.
Because I wanted a more modern look and a faster projects, I didn’t use traditional binding but just layered the fabrics and turned them right side out.
Layer: batting, backing (face up) and top (face down). Pin and sew around the sides with 1/4″ seam allowance, leaving an opening on one of the long sides to turn.
TRIM any excess batting, TURN and PRESS. PRESS the fabric from the opening under so you won’t see it after topstitching.
TOPSTITCH all the way around the table runner 1/8″ from the sides.
QUILT aș desired.
It took under 3 hours from start to finish and will be a fun addition to my St Patrick’s Day decor. This can be done for any season – get 2 of each of the Monthly Placemat Panels and make both table runners AND placemats for each month of the year!
Happy sewing and Happy St Patrick’s Day! – Tara