Weddingbee Blog

As I mentioned before, Mama Sundae and I decided to make the table runners she’s making look more “finished” with something black around the edges. She tested a few different types of ribbon as well as some bias tape, and the bias tape won out in both look and convenience. I didn’t know anything about this when I started out, so I thought I would pass along some of what I’ve learned!

Our tables are the relatively standard 72″ rounds, which seat 8-10 people. We figured out that in order to get the runners to go almost all of the way to the floor (they’re about 3 inches off the floor on each side) they needed to be 120″ long. We originally thought that we would also be able to pick the width, but looking at the fabric we ordered we quickly realized that to have the pattern centered we had to each runner as wide as the biggest part of the pattern:

The fabric came in a really wide roll, so we could get a 3 runners out of a little over 3 yards of fabric (and when I say “we” I really mean Mama Sundae. Aside from the mind numbing math calculations I haven’t had much to do with the making of the runners!) As you can see, there isn’t much room on each side of the pattern so we needed something for the border that wasn’t too thick. The ribbon was cute, but that involved Mama Sundae finishing the ends of the runner (turning them under and sewing them so they won’t fray) and then sewing on the ribbon. Besides looking good, the bonus of the bias tape is that it wraps around the actual edge of the fabric so that the edges don’t have to be finished first. You just wrap and sew.

I ordered the bias tape from JKM Ribbons & Trim, which was the best price I found. We went with the black (obviously) wide single fold bias tape, 7/8″ folded width. There are 3 yards per package and 3 packages per box, so we ordered 16 boxes. Since we had to cover all 4 edges of each runner, it took a lot of bias tape! And I wish I had a recording of the conversation it took to figure all of that out. People left the room.

We’re hopefully having about 14 tables but Mama Sundae is also making runners for the 2 photo booth tables and the escort card table. And since there is extra fabric left over, she’s also making ties for the high-top tables on the patio! So anyway - that’s the story of the runners. I know way more about fabric and yardage calculations that I ever cared to, but it will be worth it in the end! Here are some more pictures of the finished product: