Thursday, September 19, 2013

Fall Braid Table Runner using one of my favorite rulers

 Shop Hop is coming up at Hearts to Holly (starting Saturday) and one of the demos will be using the trapezoid ruler. I wanted to make a quick sample to show how the braid can be cut and used so I stitched up this table runner in an evening... THAT'S HOW QUICK IT IS!

I had a jelly roll with these beautiful black and brown and tan batiks. It uses about 7 lights and 7 dark strips. You get 8 trapezoid pieces out of a WOF strip so 56 light, 56 dark... 112 pieces works about perfectly for this runner.

They go together super fast... I work on all 3 braids at once so that I can chain stitch.

 I cut a bunch of extra pieces that I'll end up putting into pillow fronts. This ruler also cuts a nice 45 degree angle for the ends of my binding plus it cuts 2-1/2" strips... a really useful ruler.
UPDATE: I had a few people comment that they loved this ruler but had a hard time starting... what goes to what.
Here's what you do... take one dark and one light... Put the shortest side of one to the longest side of the other and stitch (doesn't matter which is dark and which is light).
Then start adding darks to the dark side and lights to the light side. Keep the angle of the trapezoid pointing downward as you go. The piece you are adding is always on top of your last stitched seam.... longest side to the seam. Refer to the pic above as you go and you should do fine.

2 comments:

Karen said...

I made a braid quilt years ago....no special ruler. I have often thought of making another as I like the design. You made a very nice table runner.

ferne said...

I have made a braid quilt before too, but this ruler looks like it would make it a lot quicker and more accurate. It is easy to get going and end up with a wave down the road.

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