Sunday, July 18, 2010

Bed Runner

Here's a photo of a bed runner at a hotel I stayed at last week. The cool thing about bed runners is that you can quickly quilt or knit or weave one and change it with the seasons because they don't take a lot of fabric and really make the bed look great.


Now here's the one I just knitted on my Brother 970 standard gauge machine.

I wove it using the 1x1 pattern just because I wanted to weave but I think tuck stitch or a fairisle would look just as great. In fact I almost wished after I started that I had done it in squares like a quilt so I could embroider in the white squares. Oh well, as I said....you can make them to match your mood if you want, they're small so the next one may be knit squares with a fabric backing on it.

I used Tamm 3 ply for the knitting yarn and Red Heart's TLC Baby, 2 skeins of color New Mint Sparkle, for the weaving yarn. I planned on 70 inches so that it would lay across the bottom of the bed and overlap just a little but had just a little yarn left over after my 700 rows and decided to go ahead and keep on going so ended up with 730 rows using all 200 needles for the width. I bought a ball of Patons Astra for the worm trim and knitted 5 stitches 8 rows all the way around to give some body to the edges. I thought I would put a fringe on it if I needed more length but it turned out just fine.

Some bed runners I've seen are narrower, this could easily be folded in half and placed farther up toward the middle of the bed as shown here: http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/bed-scarf.html

This could be made on the Bond or the mid guage machine just as easily as on the standard gauge machine.

5 comments:

Roz said...

I need to add that Rose Ver Vooren got me started on this, she posted about it on the MKEmbroidery group and then I started seeing them all over the place. Naturally I had to have one

terryd said...

And what is the purpose of them, purely decorational?

Roz said...

I think hotels are using them as an inexpensive way to decorate a room but quilters are using them as a quick/easy way to try a quilt pattern. I think we could have a lot of fun with them with our embroidery machines and knitting machines. I even might try a small quilt project with this runner idea.
Look at these links: http://www.hotelhome.com.au/HotelHomeWWW/Runner/runner.php

http://www.123stitch.com/cgi-perl/itemdetail.pl?item=AA-871059

Unknown said...

Hi,
I saw on another site where your first Knitting program was 'Mom' by a someone on the west coast.
Well, that was me, and I have a new 'Mom' for the iPhone. I'm not trying to sell you something...just reminiscing when I used to sell in Alles Around the world knitting, and sold 'Mom's Knitting Computer Program' for the Apple II and Radio Shack and IBM.

I'm retired now, and have written a hand knitting program modeled after my original 'Mom'
You might see it on www.iTunes.com and search for
'Touch and Go Knitting" or my web site at http://www.TouchAndGoKnitting.com
Nice to run into someone from those times. You are one of the only old customers I could find ,

Richard Foy
801 547 9328 Layton, ut

Becky said...

Someone asked what the purpose of the bed scarf was/is. My understanding is that hotels originally started using them to protect the bottom of their bed spreads and other covers. If one carelessly lays down on the bed with their shoes on, the scarf will protect the bedspread or quilt. If a suitcases is plopped on the bottom of the bed it is protected. I think they make a bed look classy and "finished".