Tiki Table Runner

What better time to dig out some WIP and actually make some *progress* than when your machine is in its death throes? With my poor sewing machine at the menders under a death sentence I felt obliged to get on with a hand sewing project I'd started about 6 months ago.

Tiki Table Runner Applique.

This is my sitting room - getting ever more Tiki by the day.

I have a wonderful oil cloth table cover which I bought here many years ago - I wanted a daintier fabric something or other to alternate with it.

Armed with my Cath Kidston applique book I got for Christmas, I decided to focus on one of the Hibiscus designs from the oil cloth and add a couple of humming birds for good measure.


I bought some fabric scraps from the local haberdasher - nothing fancy - and a run of linen. I was ready.

Then work and life got in the way...




Ho hum.




But hey - now I'm back on track! Last week I painstakingly transferred the pattern to iron down paper and then to the fabric. The fabric pieces were reassembled into the design on my length of linen.

The main pieces have been ironed in place and I'm now in the process of edging the design with tiny stitches (yawn) which is in fact quite speedy once I'm settled on the setee with a good movie.

Once I've stitched most of it place and found some backing fabric, I'll take some good snaps in situ on the table and blog further progress.

The runner will be made up of 3 pieces eventually - a longer central panel and then two smaller end pieces that hang over the table edge. I haven't started work on the end panels yet, but more humming birds will be the order of the day.

The humming birds are essentially tattoo swallows - I'll give them an extra long beak with some embroidery silks, along with some fancy stitching on the leaves and flowers.

I'd like to finish the whole thing off with a couple of tablecloth weights to make the thing hang nicely - which happily means a trip out to some bead shops!