table runner: eat. good. food.

I got a little crafty recently and wanted to share the result. I snuck in a sneak peek last week, but here are the details.

See, last year we found an orphaned farm table in our neighborhood. It was sitting at the curb with a huge pile of trash.A leg was missing, but other than that was perfect in a rustic-farm-table-type-of -way. And it is long. So long, in fact, that it wouldn't fit in any room of our house. Perfect for summer outdoor dinner parties. So we snagged it for the back porch. Chris fixed the leg and tightened the whole thing up. I stripped and refinished it. And now it's just patiently waiting for us to finish the porch :).

In the last couple weeks I've been playing around with my fabric stash. I've been feeling crafty and loving sewing, but I made it my goal to sew only with what I have. I really just need the practice and it's forced to get really creative in some situations! One weekend I was looking at a huge pile of burlap when I remember the sneak peek of Emersonmade's house on Design Sponge. I loved this table runner. So I thought I'd give it a try.

But this thing is, this table is so, so long. Did I already mention that? I didn't want one table runner. I wanted three that served as placemats. Organized as such:

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I sewed up three simple table runners. When it came to lettering though, I was a little stumped. I didn't have actual stencils (and couldn't find any - weird, right?), but I have pretty cool handwriting so I tried free-handing it. I can't believe I'm going to show you a picture of this. I knew the minute I finished the first one that I hated it. So I kept going and did all three. Yeah, I know, brilliant. 

Clearly my handwriting did not translate here. They actually hung out in our living room, all three laid out in a row, for a week while I tried to convince myself that *they'd do*. But in reality I never use things that I don't love. And I didn't want to make these just to have them sit in a drawer, or end up as more scrap fabric. So I tore out the middle section and resewed. I said I needed the practice, right?

Then I tried different ways to treat the type. My handwriting comes across a little better here, but this still wasn't the look I was going for. I went on a mad search for stencils and I'm so glad I did.

Exactly the look I wanted in the beginning. And, it only took about three weeks to get there! 

They say eat. good. food. I love that I can play with them when I only need two: eat food. good food. eat good., etc. The success for me is that I actually really do love them. I even pulled them out for a little gathering we hosted on Friday.

I'll have a tutorial later this week for making them. After all that I feel like a table runner pro :).