Finishing Up

All three Snowflake Twill table runners are off the loom and the two longer ones are in need of a hem. I will be hemming them before I wash them as I’ve found that this is the best way to line everything up perfectly.

What's the difference between a table linen and any other length of textile? The answer in my mind is the border. When I plan a table runner or table square project I plan for a selvedge border that will compliment the centre motif and a hem that will mirror the selvedge border;  however I thread the selvedge is how I treadle the hem.  Which ever weave structure you use for your runner the border should also be woven in the same structure so that the take up is the same.  When you weave twill for example and then do a plain weave hem, the hem will be much wider than the twill fabric because the threads intersect more frequently in plain weave.

For this project I planned a selvedge border of 1 ½ inches in straight twill.  You can see 3 complete runs in the photo above; so to balance the selvedges I want a visible hem of 1 ½ inches.

First I machine zigzagged the edges before cutting the woven textile apart. I only do one run of stitching as I’ve found if you go over it a number of times it creates a noticeable lump in the hem, in this case ~ less is more.

On the two table runners that I was planning to hem I wove 4 ½ inches of straight run twill at each end.

I weave 3 times the length of the hem so that it can be turned over twice evenly. If it’s not evenly folded, a line will telegraph through the hem and leave a weird mark when you press the hem.

This is the right side of the runner and you can see that the selvedge and the hem are essentially the same width and there is a square of straight twill at the corner.

Here's runner # 1 ~It’s quite funny that this pattern is in the November/December 2012 issue of Handwoven on page 27 ~ I’m going with ‘great minds think alike’!  Just imagine how nice it will look after it's washed.

This is runner #2 and is treadled with Ngaires pattern. Both of the runners pressed and pinned and ready to hemstitch and the third was too short to hemstitch, so it’s got a twisted fringe. 

This is runner #3....I used a completely different weft and the Sesame Street tune of 'one of these things is not like the others' keeps running through my head!  The weft is a cotton and linen blend that has some lumps and bumps so there is a lot of texture and slight fuzzyness.  It's the same, but completely different!