Thursday, August 12, 2010

Cloth Napkins - Simple ones

Okay... I'm a fabric hoarder.  I have so many scraps that are just large enough to make something useful from, but not large enough for garments or the big home dec stuff I want.  But some of these pieces are just big enough for a set of small cloth napkins.  Yeah... I'd like bigger dinner sized ones but these'll work and my Chinese blood feels good about not wasting fabric.  And it only took about 30 minutes for a set of 4.

So here's a quickie tutorial on how I got these done...
First tip... I used barkcloth scraps.  You can easily see the crosswise AND lengthwise grain making cutting really quick.  These were leftovers from a set of curtains I made for a client.  She lets me keep the scraps when the customer doesn't want them back, which is why I accumulate so much fabric... hmmmm... Anyway, here's a link to her webshop, the stuff is perfect for home dec things if you like that tropical look.  Barkcloth Hawaii.

So cut your napkins 1" bigger than your finished size.  Mine turned out to be just under 12".  A bit small, but it's what I have to work with.  Then fold over and press two opposite sides 1/4", and again, 1/4".  It should look like this.

Next, fold and press 1/4" and 1/4" again on the two other sides.  It'll look like this when it's ready for sewing.

Yup... that was the hard part.  Now all you need to do is sew.  I used the edgestitch foot and just sew all the way across on all four sides.

Simple enough eh?  So now you can go green and stop buying all those paper napkins... unless someone likes to blow their nose in it... eww.. yeah... he can use the paper towels instead.

1 comment:

sdBev said...

Great project! I've been using fabric napkins for years -- I don't mind ironing. FWIW, I seperate my fabrics that are 1.5 yards or less into seperate stacks. When I start a project that needs 1.5 yards or less, the first fabrics I consider are in this stack. I've found that I use up those small amounts when they easy to identify