Create a beautiful table runner with these highly stylized sunflower blocks that are embroidered and quilted in the hoop. The borders and binding are applied with your sewing machine.
Cut 6 10” squares of Navy Kona® and 3 10” squares of Battilizer® or low loft batting. Cut 3 pieces of stabilizer to fit your embroidery hoop. Tautly hoop one piece of stabilizer and
take that with two navy squares and one piece of Battilizer® to the machine.
Step 2:
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Run the 1st color stop (CS) in a thread that matches your fabric.
Step 3:
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Spray adhesive on the back of one of the navy squares and position over the placement line so that the fabric exceeds the placement line by ½” on all sides.
Step 4:
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Follow the color chart through color stop 8 to embroider the sunflower and border.
Step 5:
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Remove the hoop from the machine, do not unhoop, place it face down on a flat surface. Spray adhesive on a batting square and position it over the back of the hoop so that the batting exceeds the
placement line by ½” on all sides. Spray adhesive on the remaining navy square and align it over the batting.
Step 6:
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Return the hoop to the machine and run CS 9 in water soluble thread to tack down the back fabric and batting.
Step 7:
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Replace your machine bobbin with one that matches your top thread for the quilting. Run the final CS to quilt the block.
Step 8:
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Note that the final water-soluble tack down stitches maybe slight outside the original tack down stitches due to the pull the embroidery has had on the fabric.
Step 9:
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Lay the ¼” mark along the outside tack down stitches and trim the block to a ¼” seam allowance on all sides.
Step 10:
Repeat Steps 2 through 9 twice to complete the other two center blocks.
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Step 11:
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Cut two 10” x 1 ½” strips and 2 10” x 1¼” strips of navy fabric. Fold the long sides into the center of the strips and press. Keep the narrow and wider strips separate.
The narrow strips will be used on the back of the table runner and the wider ones will be used on the front.
Step 12:
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Select a wide zigzag stitch on your machine that is also widely spaced.
Step 13:
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Butt the blocks without gaps or overlaps and zigzag over the seam allowances to join the blocks together.
Step 14:
Your table runner now looks like this
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Step 15:
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Select a Serpentine stitch on your machine (you can use a straight stitch if you do not have one) for stitching the sashing onto the blocks.
Step 16:
Turn the blocks over so that you are working on the back of the table runner. Lay the narrow sashing strips, centering over the joining seams of the blocks and having about ½” of the sashing
extending above and below the blocks. Stitch down both sides of the sashing with the Serpentine stitch.
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Step 17:
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Turn the table runner right side up. Center the wider sashing strips over the front joining seams and stitch down both sides with the Serpentine stitch as you did in Step 16.
Step 18:
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Trim the excess sashing from the top and bottom of the quilt blocks.
Step 19:
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For the borders and sashing cut:
1. 4 31” x 2 ½” strips of the gold batik
2. 4 10” x 2 ½” strips of the gold batik
3. 2 31” x 2 ½” strips of Battilizer®
4. 2 10” x 2 ½” strips of Battilizer®
5. 3 1 ½”x width of fabric strips of gold batik
6. 3 1 ¼” x width of fabric strips of gold batik
7. 3 2 ½” strips of navy fabric for binding
Step 20:
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To form quilt sandwiches for the borders spray a strip of Battilizer® with adhesive; align a corresponding size gold batik fabric strip and smooth it over the Battilizer®. Spray the reverse side
of the Battilizer® with adhesive and smooth a corresponding gold batik strip of fabric on the back. Repeat for all border strips.
Step 21:
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Place invisible thread on top and in the bobbin of your machine. Butt the shorter border quilt sandwiches on the side of the table runner having the ends of the border strip exceed the block length by
1” on side. Select the wide zigzag stitch again and stitch the border to the table runner. Do this on both short ends of the table runner.
Step 22:
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Trim all ends of the borders even with the table runner.
Step 23:
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Attach the top and bottom borders to the table runner in the same manner.
Step 24:
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Trim the ends of the top and bottom borders even with the side borders.
Step 25:
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Fold the long edges to the center of the batik sashing strips. Keep the wider sashing strips separate from the narrow strips. The narrow strips will go on the back of the table runner the wider strips
will go on the front.
Step 26:
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Turn the table runner right side down. Align a narrow sashing strip over the short border seam extending the sashing approximately ½” above and beyond the side border piece. Stitch down both
sides of the sashing with the serpentine stitch. Repeat on the back of the table runner border on the other end of the table runner.
Step 27:
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Turn the table runner right side up. Align and stitch down the wide 10” sashing strips over the border ends in the same manner.
Step 28:
Turn the table runner right side down and stitch the long sashing strips over the joining seam in the same manner.
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Step 29:
Turn the table runner right side up and stitch the long sashing strips over the joining seam in the same manner.
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Step 30:
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When we trim off the excess sashing we also want to square up the table runner at time. Align a mark of your see-through ruler with the inside of the sashing and navy blocks. Trim off the sashing and any
excess border necessary so that the border will a consistent width around the table runner.
Step 31:
Stitch the binding to your quilt using your preferred method.
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Step 32:
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If you have any of the water-soluble thread tack down stitches showing on the navy blocks simply rub them with a damp cloth and they will disappear.
Step 33:
Congratulations your Pearled Sunflower Table Runner is complete!
Award winning Digitizer, Embroidery Educator, Author and a Consultant to the Industry, Pat Williams has 30 years of experience in the embroidery industry. Pat has won multiple awards for her digitizing expertise including the 2007 Impressions Awards Grand Championship, Best of Show as well as the 1st and 2nd Place Awards. Pat’s love of digitizing has afforded her the opportunity to write numerous articles for Impressions magazine in the United States and Images Magazine in Europe. In 2001 Pat was named “Embroidery Educator of the Year.” For many years Pat taught digitizing seminars at the ISS Shows in Long Beach, CA and for Compucon software. She now resides in Tucson, AZ.
