Rustic Runner

I've spent the last few days working on an area of my den.  It involves an occassional table, and as part of dressing it up, I decided to make a small "runner" for it.

Here it is!

I love how it turned out.  And I love how inexpensive it was to make.  Simple cotton fabric is just a few dollars, and the transfer paper is roughly a dollar per sheet. So, I'd ring up the entire project at $4.

 I took my two fabrics (it didn't take much!) and cut out three panels that would become the three sections of the runner.

I picked out a pretty French graphic from The Graphics Fairy and opened it in Paint.net (a simple, free photo/image editing program I use).  I then converted it to a mirror image so that it would look right after I transferred it onto the fabric.

I printed it on iron-on transfer paper--no fancy tricks here--an ironed it onto the fabric for the center panel.

I matched up the edges of the panels and used stitch-witchery (an iron-on fabric adhesive that you can get at Hobby Lobby, JoAnne's, etc.) to bind them together. I did the same to "hem" up all the edges.  I still don't have my sewing machine, ug!

I didn't worry about cutting my fabric perfectly straight, because I knew I could iron on straight stitches with the stitch-witchery.

Even though I ironed all the fabric before starting, I pressed the panels again to make them crisp and clean....but if you try this, remember NOT to touch the iron to the image, or it will melt! (I had a near miss...eek.)

The image is perfectly vintage.  It transferred perfectly to the fabric.

Rustic yet elegant....my favorite combination!

P.S.  To see where I'm linking up this week, click the "Blog Parties" tab at the top of the page! I'm also linking to Nifty Thrifty Tuesday.