Crochet Table Runner

I love to crochet. I tell people it’s what keeps me sane. I generally crochet every day, usually in the evening. There is always one project or another in process or in my thoughts waiting to be worked out. I have lots of stash of all kinds….cotton, acrylic, blends, wool, thread, baby weight, sport weight, worsted weight; you name it!

I had an idea percolating for several weeks to make a table runner for my daughter’s birthday. I was inspired by several projects I saw on Pinterest, here and here, among others. Don’t you just love Pinterest? I could spend hours and hours on Pinterest. So many creative ideas.

I thought doing a table runner with granny squares would be nice, but with only 2 round granny squares, and I wanted to join them on the corners only. I thought cotton yarn would be best so I looked into my stash to see how many different colors I had and realized I was good to go. In fact, my stash was so large I didn’t need any additional yarn at all. This is a nice project for reducing stash. And of course once the stash is reduced what’s a girl to do but go out and buy more yarn.

Working on this project was a bit stressful at times. You see my daughter only lives a block away and she is known to pop in without warning at any time. When you least expect it the door will open and there she is. That’s great, all in all, except when you’re working on a surprise.

One time she walked in and there I sat on the couch crocheting her birthday present.  But she’s so used to seeing me with a hook and yarn that she didn’t give it a second thought. When her back was turned I quickly tossed the work to the side, stood up, walked over to her, and acted very nonchalant, like nothing unusual was going on. I can be pretty tricky if necessary! After that I was vigilant. If I heard a car pull up in the driveway or heard the door opening I would hide the work as quick as a wink!

Each square measured approximately 2″ square; 3″ across diagonally. I made stacks of 1 round squares, which were hardly squares, but rather circles, and then added the second round while joining them using the join as you go method found here and here.

How long would this runner be? Well, I didn’t want it so long that it would need to be removed before every meal.  My idea was for her to be able to set the table with the runner in place and not have any place setting touching it.

How wide would it be? Well I thought a row of 3 squares followed by a row of 4 squares would work well. It ended up being almost 14″ wide across the diagonal row of 4 squares.

I worked on it for about 2 weeks, on and off, mostly in the evenings, a square here and a square there randomly joining as I went…with no rhyme or reason to the placement.  The only “rule” I followed was that I didn’t want any squares to touch that were the same color, but since I had about 12-13 colors to work with it wasn’t difficult to spread them out.

As the table runner took shape I would think it had reached its total length until younger daughter number 1 would say, “No, not yet. It needs to be a bit longer.” So I’d add another 7 squares; a row of 3 and a row of 4 and think, all done. I’d lay it on my table and feel satisfied with the length but then younger daughter number 2 would say, “No, not yet. It needs to be a bit longer.”

I kept thinking it needed to be short enough to not be removed during a meal until younger daughter number 1 (she’s quite wise for her 21 years) pointed out that no matter how short it was it would need to be removed… remember milk? Remember what milk does when it’s spilled? She was right! This would need to be removed from the table no matter how short it was. After all, kids will be kids! And kids make messes, even darling grandchildren make messes.

So I added to the length until it measured approximately 52″ from end to end. And both daughter number 1 and daughter number 2 approved.

After I joined all the squares I decided to do a simple border, 1 row of chains joined with a single crochet at each space and 3 single crochets in the corners. Very simple. I could have used any color for the border but my daughter is partial to pink so it was an easy decision.

I admit that while I was working on this I was tempted to keep it for myself. But I didn’t. I gave it to her. And she loved it! I hoped she would.

I have another project working itself out in my thoughts at the moment. I am thinking of making a table runner like this for myself but using fall colors. Won’t that look nice? I’m not sure exactly how I’ll do it…single color granny squares? 2 color granny squares? 1 color for the center but various colors for the second round? 2 round granny squares or maybe even 3 round granny squares? Lots of possibilities. I’ll be playing with various ideas until I find what’s exactly right.

Crochet is so creative!

I’ll keep you posted!