Christmas Star Table Runner

As part of working with Fairfield World as one of their Master Makers I was recently sent a variety of fat quarters from the Urban Scandinavian line from P&B Textiles. There are a ton of fabrics in the line, lots of different prints in 6 different colors. I was sent a sample of the fabrics, 3 of each of the 6 colors. I went back and forth on what I wanted to do with them because part of me wanted to use the whole stack, all of the colors together, to make a quilt or something. But, on the other hand with Christmas coming up I was really tempted to pull the reds, greens, and grays from the stack and make a Christmas project. I kind of liked the idea of making something with Christmas colors but not really Christmas fabrics so it wasn't quite so Christmasy, a little bit more subtle I guess. I figured out how many squares of different sizes I could get from those 9 fat quarters and drew up a quilt design that used some solid white to take up some of the space so I could get a slightly bigger quilt. I really liked the design that I came up with but even with the white I felt like it was going to be too small and I was worried that in the end I wouldn't love it. Plus, I stared at that stack of fat quarters for so long trying to decide which way to go that it was getting too close to Christmas and I wasn't sure I would have time to get a whole Christmas quilt made.

So I decided go the route of making a quilt using all of the fabrics. I cut the pieces I needed for my quilt and at the end I had some small scraps, 2"-3" strips, left from each fat quarter. I just couldn't seem to get that Christmas idea out of my head so I set aside the quilt pieces, took the 9 small strips I had left over from the red, green and gray fat quarters and this table runner was born.

Because I was working with small leftover pieces the squares are really small. They are only 1 1/2" finished, but from those scraps I was able to get enough fabric to make this little Christmas Star Table Runner. It is based on the original quilt idea that I had come up with but obviously changed a little to make it the right size and shape and to use the little bit of fabric that I had. After piecing it I wanted to quilt it pretty densely so I made my first attempt at free motion quilting. It is kind of messy and my machine kept skipping stitches so don't look too closely, but for the most part I was happy with the way it looked. I was a little concerned that some of the fabrics my be too light and not enough contrast with the white, one of the grays in particular was really light. In real life I think there is enough contrast that it works, in the pictures it definitely looks little lighter than I would like.

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How to Make Christmas Star Table Runner

Finished size 9"x 27"

You will need:

• 1/8 yard or 3"x22" strips of 9 different fabrics (3 each of red, green, and gray) 
• 1/8 yard white
• 1/3 yard fabric  for backing/binding
• Fusiboo fusible batting (craft size or scrap slightly bigger than finished size)
• rotary cutter, mat, and ruler
• coordinating thread

Instructions:

Cut

From colored strips:

12- 2.5" squares

72- 2" squares

From white:

12- 2.5" squares

3- 3.5" squares

Assemble

The first thing you will need to do is prepare your half square triangles that you will use to make the points of the star. To do this draw a line diagonally across each of the white 2.5" squares. Then place right sides together and sew a 1/4" on each side of the line. Cut along the line, open the squares, press and trim. 

Now you will layout all of the squares and sew them together. The runner is 6 squares down by 18 squares across. There is a row of plain squares all the way around the stars and 2 rows of squares between each star. 

I sewed mine together in short rows as follows:

Row 1: 6 colored squares

Row 2: 2 colored squares, 2 half square triangles, 2 colors

Row 3: (this row is 2 squares wide) 2 colored squares sewn together, 2 half square triangles sewn together, 1 large white square, 2 half square triangles sewn together, 2 colored squares sewn together

Row 4: 2 colored squares, 2 half square triangles, 2 colors

Row 5: 6 colored squares

That pattern is repeated 3 times to make the runner. Here is my awful attempt at a diagram to show how the rows are sewn together:

Once you have all of the rows pieced and sewn together you should have a finished piece that is approximately 9"x27". Press all of the seams and cut the batting to fit (or slightly larger, I like to give myself just a little extra. Then cut a backing piece at least one inch bigger all the way around, so 11"x 29" or larger. Layer the pieces and iron together. I love using fusible batting for projects like this because it is so easy just to iron it all together. Quilt as desired. Trim any excess batting around the outside edge. Trim the backing fabric so that you have 3/4" extra on each side, fold the raw edge in to the raw edge of the pieced section, then fold in again over the edge of the pieced section to create your binding, pin in place and sew around stitching close to the inside edge of the binding. 

Even though the squares are pretty tiny the project is small enough that I was able to get it done pretty quickly. If you don't have time to make it before Christmas you could change up the colors and I think it would be great for any season. Blues would be really pretty for January, or springy pastels for Easter time, or even just in colors to match our kitchen decor for all year round. The other nice thing is that it is a great project to use up scraps and if you are anything like me you probably have plenty of those lying around waiting to be used up. And if you don't want to use it as a table runner it could always be used as a wall hanging, especially if you have a space that you want to hang something but it is kind of skinny. This would work great for that too.