Weddingbee Blog

As I mentioned yesterday, we got a ton of wedding related work done it at my parents house this weekend! And when I say “we” I really mean that everyone else worked and I walked around and gave direction while taking pictures. It’s the way to be. Besides the foam letters, Mama Sundae and I made one of the runners so that we can take it up to Wisconsin for our table mock-up in a few weeks. We were originally planning on making them 14-16″ wide, but when we laid the fabric out it was clear that each runner could only be as wide as the biggest part of the pattern:

So each runner is almost exactly 12 inches. If you can see those little diamond things on the outside of the large pattern, we cut right down the middle of those to make each runner. That way we could fold each edge under about 1/4 of an inch. We made the first runner 120″ long, which will be the longest possible length. When we put it on the table we’ll decide how long we actually want them to be and trim accordingly. The first cut was through the width of the fabric, to get the appropriate length:

Then we cut out each runner…if you look closely you can see the lines that we drew right on the fabric. The ends get folded under, so even if you’re not completely accurate (I am nearly incapable of cutting in a straight line) you won’t see the lines.

Then you pin each of the edges under 1/4 of an inch. After Mama Sundae pinned them this way she realized it was easier to put in the pins in vertically because you can run the sewing machine right over them.

We decided that white thread would blend the best, and it turns out you can barely see it. The actual sewing takes only a few minutes, it’s the cutting and the pinning that takes awhile.

Here is the first finished product! As you can see, my Mom’s measuring skills were right on and the large pattern is perfectly centered all the way down.

The lumps in the fabric are just because we didn’t feel like ironing at the moment. They lay quite nicely and the fabric is a great weight so that they hang over the edge perfectly.

We also decided that sewing some black ribbon onto the edges might make it look more finished. Mama Sundae is going to get some ribbon and make another runner with the ribbon attached this week. We’ll take both of them up to Wisconsin and decide which we like best when we see them on the tables. I would guess it will take about an hour to make each runner (okay, it will take my Mom about an hour to make each runner. It would take me about a day per runner), and I tried to let my Mom off the hook several times this weekend but she insists that she wants to make them. Thank goodness for Moms