Last Wednesday night after work, I headed to my parents' house to have dinner with them. My mom had been to Target earlier in the day and scored these three sets of sheets from the clearance rack.
Pink and white stripe, green and white polka dot, and pink and white polka dot. She got the queen-size sheet sets for under 20 bucks. Love a good deal!
So why the sheets? Well, we've got some more card table tent ideas up our sleeves and buying sheets is a lot cheaper than buying lots of yardage of fabric. Plus, it's a bigger piece of fabric. If you're ever making something big, sheets are the way to go if you don't want to have to piece your fabric together and have a seam down the middle. Just a little tip from me to you. We'll be able to get several tents made out of these three sets of sheets.
Before we started cutting out walls and roofs, I asked my mom if I could cut off a strip from the side of the striped set. It didn't take me long after seeing the sheets to decide that they'd make a great table runner for a Pinkalicious party that's being held at my house later today. Mom did not object, so I grabbed my scissors and cut off a piece.
It was a wrinkly piece because I used the fitted sheet so we'd have as much of the good flat sheet to use for tents as possible. All I had to do was cut off the elastic and give it a good ironing and you can't even tell it used to be a sheet.
Since this was a spur-of-the-moment idea, I had not measured my table at home nor did I know the measurements of a standard table runner. I didn't care, though. I figured I could just wing it.
To give it just a little more detail (and because, truthfully, I was nervous it would be too short since I cut from the edge of the fitted sheet and not the middle where it's longer), I added a 3-ish inch strip of the same fabric turned in the opposite direction on each end of my long strip.
Mom still had some white sheets left over from lining Parker's tent so I was able to use a piece of them to line my table runner. Like a good little sewer, I placed my right sides together and pinned all the way around.
It didn't take long to make my way all the way around, sewing them together. I tell ya, sewing striped fabric is the way to go. It's so nice to have a little line to follow! I may make that a new sewing requirement for me - I'll only make things out of striped fabric. It should would make everything easier.
After turning it inside out and ironing it, I did do some quick top-stitching all the way around so it'd keep its shape if I ever washed it.
When I got home, I threw it on our dining table to see how it'd look. Guess I didn't really need to worry about the length being too short. It's longer than any other table runner I have. Oops?
When the chair is pushed up under the table, the edge of the table runner almost kisses the seat of the chair. I'm ok with that, though. I figure for something that I knocked out very quickly after work one day, it could be a lot worse.
For some reason, the end of the runner sometimes reminds me of the cuff on a man's shirt. You know, something like this:
Did anyone else think that? No? Just me? Well, alrighty then.
We're just a few hours away from the Pinkalicious party. I'll be back with more details soon!