How to Paint a Grainsack Inspired Table Runner

Hello again! I hope you all had a good Christmas. We had a great Christmas, but it just went by too fast! I am not ready to take down my Christmas decorations yet but I suppose it is time. I will be working on that this weekend. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you a tutorial how to paint a grainsack inspired table runner. This table runner was on my table in my Christmas Home Tour {Part 2}, however it is one that you can use year round. In this tutorial, I will also be sharing my tip to paint perfect straight lines on fabric. 🙂

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For this project you will need:

Dropcloth
Sewing machine
Thread
Cutting mat, rotary cutter and 24″ ruler – this is optional, you can just use scissors to cut your fabric but this makes cutting fabric so much easier!
Sewing gauge (or a piece of cardstock – see tip below)
Acrylic paint (color of your choice)
Stencil brush
Blue tape
Plastic dropcloth
Straight piece of wood long enough to fit your project (to use as a straight edge)
Plastic Scraper or credit card

I made my table runner from dropcloth material, but you could always buy a plain one like this one if you do not want to sew one. Although it is very easy to sew as you will see, and a lot cheaper. I usually buy a large dropcloth and can get several projects from it.

I cut the dropcloth material 15” wide. My table is 72” long and I wanted it to hang off the edges about 6 inches so I cut it 85” long. I sewed a double fold hem on all sides using a ¼” seam. If you don’t have a seam guide, you can use a piece of cardstock. Using your ruler, draw a line across the long edge of the cardstock equal to the size of your seam allowance. Then iron the fabric over the edge of the cardstock meeting the line as you work your way down the side of the fabric. It is ok to iron right over the cardstock.

After your seam is ironed, fold it again on itself and iron that down. This will hide all the raw edges and give you a nice hem.

Sew along the inside edge of the pressed hem. I like to line my edge up with the little arrow on my sewing foot. It helps me to sew a straight line. 😉

Now it is time to paint. Make sure you put something under the table runner before you start painting. You don’t want to paint your floor. 🙂 I just used a plastic dropcloth.

I wanted to make the table runner look like a grainsack material. We decided to make the middle stripe 2” wide and each outside stripe ¼” wide. The width of my finished table runner was 14” so I measured and made a little mark at 6” and 8” on each end.

I needed something to use as a straight edge to tape off my line. We are in the process of bulking up our trim around the house so I used a piece of trim that we have yet to put up downstairs. You could use anything that is has a straight edge that is long enough to fit your project. I placed the trim on the little mark on each end of the table runner and taped right up next to the trim piece.

After I got each side taped, I wanted to make sure that no paint seeped under the tape so I burnished the tape down using this scraper. Besides how nice it is for this project, these little scrapers are the BEST to have around for using on dishes to scrape off hard food. You can use them on pans or whatever without worrying about scratching them. I use mine all the time as you can tell from the picture. It gets a lot of love. 🙂

I used an acrylic paint that I got at Walmart. It was Apple Barrel brand, Flamenco Red color. I squirted some onto a paper plate and used a stencil brush to paint the table runner.

Just dip the brush in the paint a little at a time, the more paint you have on your brush, the more chance it might seep under the tape. Rapidly tap the brush, trying to keep the brush perpendicular to the fabric at all times.

After I finished with the center stripe, I took off the tape immediately before it dried. I saved these pieces of tape to reuse them on the outside stripes. I let the paint dry completely before taping off the outside stripes. The tape completely covered the center stripe so make sure it is dry before doing this. Using the same technique, I taped off the outside stripes and painted them.

I think it turned out very well, there was minimal bleeding and my lines looked straight. 🙂 Can’t ask for better than that!

I am still planning on washing it to give it a softer, more aged look. This will get done this weekend when I take down my Christmas decorations. I plan to make another one with gray stripes to match the dining room a little better for everyday use. So how about you, do you have your Christmas decorations down yet?

Kimberly