As you’ve probably noticed the non-wedding portion of Your Modern Couple has been a little lacking in the DIY department. Mostly because all of the projects I’ve been working on are wedding related, and there are a lot of them. So today I can finally share one of the big projects I tackled this past weekend while visiting my parents in north Texas.

I will be renting all of the linens at our reception, which will be standard white with black napkins. One of the original wedding coordinators we interviewed was totally blown away that I wasn’t also renting overlays. Really? Maybe they aren’t for everyone Miss Thang. I honestly just wasn’t really seeing anything that caught my eye and everything was a little too.. metallic. I wanted to keep all of our tables simple and let the centerpieces do all of the talking. However for the “important tables” (that would be the cake table, bar, gift table, guestbook table, place card table, favor table, etc.) I wanted to add a little oomph since they wouldn’t have the any centerpieces or a whole lot of decoration for that matter. As you may have noticed from my DIY bouquet post, I love black and white stripes. So I knew I wanted to make black and white striped table runners. And not just boring rectangular runners I wanted to stick with our banner theme (seen here and here) and make them a little special. So when I came across this image I knew it was the look I was going for.

via

I searched high and low for the perfect fabric, and ended up ordering 6 yards from here. It had a 3″ repeat (meaning that the stripes were 1.5″ wide) which was exactly the scale I was looking for. I made sure to choose a fabric with a horizontal repeat (stripes running along the bolt) that way I wouldn’t have to piece anything together for the longer tables. Each table at the venue is 6′ long and I wanted an 18″ overhang on each side so I knew that each table would require 3 yards of fabric, but because the fabric was 54″ wide I could make three runners at a time (because my runners would only be about 18″ wide). It’s fabric math. ;)

After a few days the fabric arrived, and it was a LOT of fabric.

My mom and I laid it out and measured where the three panels would be. Needless to say it’s hard to get much work done with our furry friends “helping”.

We used the stripes as guides to make 18 feet of straight lines

Then we used cheap-o white fabric for the backing. It was a much smaller width and after cutting it in half we still had to trim a little extra.

Then we placed the striped fabric face down onto the white backing and pinned along the longest sides of the pieces leaving the two smaller ends open on each set.

And I sewed along each long side, using the stripes as guides to keep my lines straight.

The open ends were where the points were to be cut so I measured from stitch to stitch to find the middle.

Half of 18″ is 9″, so I marked a point at the top of my fabric.

From there I measured down 8″ which made the perfect angle I was looking for.

Then I just connected the dots with a pen, so I’d know where to make my cuts.

Then for the other side I folded the completed edge over and traced it.

I pinned the points down to make the sewing part easier.

I ran a quick stitch all around each point, turing at every angle to keep a continuous line.

On the other side I did the same thing, but left a 6″ gap open so that I could still turn everything right side out when I finished.

I knew that the points would be very tight (unlike a pillow) so I trimmed off some excess fabric so that when I turned them right side out they would create a nice sharp point, rather than a rounded one.

I loathe hand sewing, and I still had five more to make after this one, so for the 6″ opening I used hem tape and ironed it in place.

I also ironed the entire piece to flatten out the edges and make everything as seamless as possible. It turned out pretty much exactly as I had hoped for, and I think it will just add that little pop of pattern in a sea of white boring tablecloths.

I obviously will be using this on a much larger table, with a white tablecloth underneath, but since I didn’t have access to any of that, my coffee table certainly sufficed. I’m excited because these will make great gifts after the wedding, and I know we’ll have on on our dining room table that will look so charming with our china pattern.