For the Table

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 267, 1 February 1928, Page 7

For the Table

ATTRACTIVE NEW RUNNERS Brightening the Home Really nice table runners are so expensive to buy that it is well worth while making them at home, especially as home-made runners will harmonise better with the rooms in which they are to be used.

A PPLIQUE work is, perhaps, the most suitable method of trimming the modern table scarf. A runner of midnight blue satin, with silver galon binding the edges, may have a really delightful goldfish design appliqued on to each end. Scraps of gold brocade, cut to shape, will suggest the fishes; and pointed, spear-like leaves of jade green silk will form realistic reeds, if applied in decorative groups of threes and fours and kept in place with stitches of silver thread. A black satin runner could have a full-blown rose of glowing crimson velvet stitched lightly at each end; velvet petals here and there beneath, to look as though just dropping from the flowers, will add a delightful finish; while, if a few pearl beads be very lightly and daintily stitched on one or two of the petals, the effect of dewdrops will be beautifully suggested. On a brown velvet runner, for use in a room with a golden colour scheme, big shaggy chrysanthemums of deep gold may be evolved in the same way. Raffia cloth, an intriguing can-vas-like material, obtainable from shops that specialise in embroidery requisites, can be utilised for

fashioning very desirable runners. A deep border of flowers—purple, rose, blue, orange, scarlet, and green—can very simply be embroidered on each end with wool or raffia; and all the other edges should be buttonholed with black or green. Y r et another notion, less expensive of execution, but but every whit as attractive, calls for black sateen as a background; glowing bird-and-flower designs are cut from cretonne or printed linen, and appliqued on in graceful groups each end. Part of the pattern may be outlined and enriched with silver thread, contrasting wools, or matching silks; with practice, wonderful effects, suggestive of old-time tapestry-work, may quickly be achievcid. When making table runners, it is a good idea to plan cushion covers to match. In this way they both form an integral part of the room’s decorative scheme, and each lends lustre to the other. For an informal type of apartment, simply furnished in the “peasant art” style now so much in vogue, runners and cushions might well be fashioned of gay checked gingham, with touches of bright wool embroidery in some of the squares.