Quilt Tip: An easy technique for a woven table runner design.

I love this technique shared by Krista Moser on her blog at www.kristamoser.com. She uses a Creative Grids ruler she designed, but using a 60 degree angle, you could also do this with other rulers. Of course, her ruler would be ideal for this project.
​JUST ONE CUT TABLE RUNNER by Krista Moser

What kind of design can you make with just one cut? I had fun playing around this week and came up with this woven braid-style table runner! I had a pile of orphan 2 ½” strips in all kinds of fall colors and thought it would be fun to use them up in a new way. ​

First, I cut 8 ½” trapezoids from the 2 ½” strips. I used the Large 60-Degree Diamond Ruler for this step. Using the triangle lines on the ruler, align the 8 ½” line with the bottom of the strip and the 6” star/burr line with the top of the strip. Cut on both sides of the ruler, and trim the outside corners off flat. Rotate the ruler 180 degrees to make the next cut.

I got a little carried away and cut a huge pile of these trapezoids. I ended up only using 34 of these for my table runner and it still came out 36” long.

Now, for the layout. This was fun! I thought I'd mix all the colors up, but in the end, I ended up liking a more ombre layout… no surprise there :) Here you see each one overlapping the next one.

Okay, now to sew it together. I took the first two pieces and sewed the short seam to join the left piece to the underside of the right piece. Press that seam out.

Add the next piece to the top left, and use the flat tips as a match-up point on either end to center the piece before sewing.

Press that seam out once sewn. ​

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Add a piece to the top right, sew, and press each new piece.

Alternating right and left, add one piece at a time, pressing each seam out before adding the next piece.

I kept adding trapezoids until my table runner was as long as I wanted. This would be fun to do in a quilt-as-you-go method as well. So easy and pretty fast too!

I just quilted mine with straight lines ¼” apart on the longarm. I planned to cut both ends off straight, so I didn’t bother quilting the areas that would get cut off.

​Trim the whole thing up and straighten out the ends. I bound it with a 2 ¼” binding.

And here it is! I had so much fun with this super simple scrap project, I already have plans to make a few more. This table runner came out 14½” wide and 36” long. If I started with 6 ½” trapezoids, this table runner would only be about 10½” wide. You could make a cut heart runner from 4½” trapezoids. Wouldn't that be cute in a candy cane colors?!
​Krista