Wedding Wednesday: DIY Table Runners

Originally posted on August 12, 2015, but I edited the original post to make the tutorial easier to follow and added photos of the table runners at our event. 

Mark and I did most of our wedding planning while I was in grad school.

We had a long engagement because we lived apart while I was in school and wanted to be together when we finally got married. I had to cram most of the wedding planning into school breaks, and I ended up with less time than it might have seemed like I should have had …

Anyway, because of the time crunch I had, we decided that we were NOT going to DIY (do it yourself) anything that we could rent or buy for less. However, it turned out that we we didn’t like the look of some of the rent/buy-for-cheaper-than-DIY options.

We really didn’t like the look of the pre-made table runners. But it is definitely not cheaper to make runners, especially if you factor in my cost-per-hour ($50), which is not included in the price below.

We decided to DIY them anyway, once I figured out that I could buy fabric for these and stash the remainder for craft projects (hell yeah!).

The average cost of a rented runner is $15, and our runners cost us $20 each to make. 

You could make table runners for way cheaper than this if you pick up cheaper fabric. We chose designer fabrics that I wanted to have in my fabric stash post-wedding. Most were $10+ a yard. We wanted to have a very specific retro look to our wedding, as inspired by this image:

Our color palette influenced our decision to make rather than buy / rent.

The colors available for rentable / buyable table runners didn’t quite match our scheme, and we really loved the bold pattern on the picture above. Here’s our scheme for reference.

Because of those things, we decided that I’d make the table runners.

Mark and I had fun picking out tons of pretty fabrics with bold prints that matched our scheme. These were a few we picked, although the pink one in the bottom row is one I regret buying because we barely used it and now I have a TON of pink-and-gold-dot fabric. Oops.

Before buying fabric, I checked online to see if anybody had quick and easy guides for making table runners. I came across this great guide for yardage for DIY table runners and napkins from Sew Mama Sew.

Since I’m an avid sewer, I figured sewing table runners would be a piece of cake. I was pretty much right; the sewing part is easy. Measuring, cutting, ironing, and pinning is a MAJOR pain in the ass.

I binge-watched probably a season-and-a-half of Private Practice while making these. My friend Sam ended up bailing me out and helping me make the last 10 or more.

I did not find a super easy-to-follow guide for sewing the table runners, so I just did mine the way I thought was best. Here is how I made mine. 

Note: my tables were 60″ in diameter, so that’s the yardage reference I used from the above guide. 

• Iron your fabric, then cut into 85″ chunks (2.5″ yards). You could have your fabric store cut to that length if you desire — I should have done this because it would have saved a lot of time.
• Cut the 85″ pieces lengthwise (as shown above) so that you have 3 pieces of 13.5″x85″ fabric. Or you could cut into two pieces of 22″x85″ fabric if you’d like wider runners. We made some skinnier runners with some of the extra fabric and layered the skinny runners over the fatter ones. 

• Once you have your fabric pieces cut, iron again. I know, but you gotta keep them ironed or they won’t sew straight!
• Then iron 1/4″ of the fabric from the right side to the wrong side of the fabric (pictured above) and pin. You could miter your corners if you are okay losing one inch instead of a half inch to seams. I did not miter because it was more time consuming. Here is a great mitered corners tutorial.

• Once you have your runners pinned, sew a 1/4″ seam around the entire runner.
• I used a 3.0 straight stitch. You could go 3.5 or 4 if you want. 

• For reference, 1/4 of an inch is about the same as the width of your machine’s foot. I typically use that as a guide.

• Once you have sewn your table runners, iron them again. Yes. Iron them again. I know, right?

One additional step: prepare for storage.

• If you are storing your table runners, be sure to iron them and roll them around a tube to keep them from getting wrinkled. You could also hang them on a hanger in a closet, but I didn’t have room for that.
• We matched and rolled our runners in the color combos we liked so that people could just roll them onto the tables when decorating. As far as I know, that went swimmingly. 

Here are our runners in action at our wedding.

Photo credits: Joe Crimmings

If you have been married, did you make any of your decor? What did you make? OR If you are not married, have you made decor for any other event?