C h r I s M y s t e r y 2 0 1 5

Ornament Table Runner

We’re so happy you joined us for our Christmas Mystery Stitch-a-long…

And congratulations on having made it to the assembly instructions! Follow our

guide to trimming your ornaments, and then use our quick finish technique here, or

use your pretty blocks for your very own project inspiration.

Supplies:

• Three, four, or five of the easy one-color or full color ornaments from the past four weeks—

mix and match as much as you like!

• Thin batting & backing fabric (size determined by the size of your stitched together piece)

1. Trim

Lay your ornaments out in a line and play with them until you have an arrangement that you like. Then

determine which ornament has the least amount of fabric on the sides. We recommended just using

background fabric to fit your hoop—all of our finished ornaments had about 9” x 12” around them. After

measuring each, we saw that our “Winterberries” ornament was a little less wide than the rest.

Taking your ornament with the least fabric, first establish a vertical line. With an erasable fabric marker

or chalk pen, draw a line through the middle of the little hook at the top and then through the bottom

center of the ornament as shown in red in Photo B. From the center line, measure out to the sides as far as

you can—this will be determined by the side that has less fabric on it. Measure out the same distance on

each side from the center line, as shown by the blue arrows, and

trim your sides. Measure this width; this is the width that all of

you ornaments will be cut to.

For the height of your block, again, just figure out which

ornament has the least height, and cut them all to that dimension.

Our “Winterberry” ornament had the least fabric top to bottom as

well. You don’t have to center the ornament vertically—it looks

fine if they jump up and down a bit, as you’ll see on the next

page! Our ornaments were trimmed to 9” x 11-1/2.”

Once your ornaments are all trimmed, again line them up in order.

Then…

Have a little fun and do something different! We moved the 2nd ornament up 2-1/2,” and the 4th ornament

down 2-1/2.” The effect is that they are bouncing up and down on the “tree.” (If you don’t feel

adventurous, or really want to get this done quickly, feel free to just stitch them in a line. This method of

finishing will still work with a simple shape.) If you are working with 3 or 4 ornaments, you can just make

each one step down slightly, and your table runner will look great displayed on an angle. Make a little

mark where the top of each piece is, and stitch them together with ¼” seam. When you stitch the seams,

sew a complete line down the whole edge, even where there is only one piece of fabric as shown by the

red arrows above; then use the line to iron the entire seam toward the dark fabric, including the loose

parts.

2. Batting

Lay your piece on top of some thin batting—ours was 1/8,” but use what you have on hand. Pin the

ornaments to the batting in each corner and make sure everything is flat and tidy. Stitch in the ditch across

the seams between each ornament to attach the fabric to the batting. Then, using a basting stitch, stitch all

the way around the edges at the 1/8” seam line. When finished, your batting is well secured to the

fabric—trim the batting even with the front all around.

3. Backing.

Now it’s time to layer with your backing fabric—we had a pretty winterberries fabric for ours. The

batting will be on top—backing fabric on the bottom face up. The ornaments are in the middle, face

down. Again, pin the layers together well.

Stitch all around the edges at the ¼” seam line—except for leaving a wide opening for turning on the right

side. Use a smaller stitch than normal to get a very tight seam—we set our machine to 1.5. At both inside

and outside corners, you may also want to backstitch a bit for strength.

When finished, trim the backing fabric even with everything else… then trim the outside corners close to

the stitching—being careful not to cut into your stitching. Cut a “V” into the inside corners…

4. Turn and Backstitch

Turn your piece right side out. With a blunt pair of scissors, shape each corner nicely. Press so that none

of the backing fabric is visible from the front. Iron the open edges in ¼”. Now topstitch the entire edge

with a matching thread color, as close to the edge as you can all the way around your piece—our

backstitching is at the 1/8” seam line. Our completed project is shown in Photos F and G on the following

page.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our Chris Mystery stitch project and that you have

something nice to display enjoy from year to year.

We wish you the merriest Christmas ever and a wonderful 2016… join us in

mid-January for our next free Mystery Stitch project!

To be added to our preferred customer mailing list and share photos and

comments with embroidery friends, please join us at:

http://www.sanfranciscostitchco.com/JoinUs

All designs are copyright 2015 San Francisco Stitch Co. Designs may not be altered, resold, or transferred to third parties. Selling

stitched items in limited quantities is permitted.