Two Hour Table Runner – Fast & Stylish Too!

Tutorial by: Carli Heinrichs of Good Earth Quilting. Visit Carli’s blog too.

I love a fast and easy way to sew strips and make interesting blocks. This tutorial is a short demonstration of how we can make the process of block building in a modern, fast way.

This tutorial will help you step out of the box of traditional thinking about always having everything straight and even and time consuming. This tutorial is just the beginning of using this technique to make fun bags, quilts, table runners and gifts of all kinds.

I’ll be posting more of these tutorials on my blog Blended Fabric Quilts and part two will be featured here on the Quilting Gallery on Thursday.

Step 1: Start with three fat quarters, don’t trim, just lay them on top of each other on a cutting mat.

Step 2: Using a long enough ruler to reach both sides of the fat quarters, make two off center kind of cuts in the way I’ve done in this photo. The secret to this technique is about going out of the box.

Step 3: From the first stack on your left, take the top piece and put it under the same stack. Then on the next stack, take the top two pieces and put them at the bottom of the pile. Leave the third stack intact.

Step 4: Sew the slices back together, press each seam and square off the pieced blocks.

Step 5: Sew the three pieced blocks together in whatever way you like. I chose to make the seams linear. You can turn them alternate too if you like.

Then machine quilt this as you desire. I made this long table runner from my stock of organic Cloud9 fabrics.

Pretty and simple, I made this quilted table runner in under two hours.

This simple tutorial is the first in a series of more tutorials on how to go far out of the box and laugh all the way to success in only minutes of your time compared to the cutting and arranging of most traditional block sewing that you might have started with in the beginning.

Next time, double cuts and then you’ll see the possibilities! Check back here on Thursday.