Below is my tried-and-true method for sewing cloth napkins. Ready to give napkin-making a go? What You Do: Determine how many napkins you want to make. Sign up for my newsletter. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Hi, I'm Erin Take a tour of my frugal home, and find new tips to put to work in your frugal home. Visit the Forum Join us over on the forum to discuss money-saving ideas and participate in monthly challenges.
Printable Budget Worksheet. How to Make Tick Tubes. Printable Family Recipe Book. Free Printable Pantry Master List. Printable Monthly Spending Worksheet. How to Build a Carpenter Bee Trap. Next I cut along the very edge of the outer part of each S shape so that now I had three one yard pieces of fabric stacked. With my ruler, I measured 18 inches and cut the full width of the fabric, now there are two stacks of 3 layers of fabric that measure 18x45 each.
Make the next two cuts 18 inches from each edge on each stack. There will be 12 pieces 18x18 each and 12 remnants that could be used later for quilt scraps, doll cloths, or hair scrunchies, or even napkin rings, but that would be another Instructable. If you do not have rotary cutters, mats and straight edges, just measure 18 inch squares and cut them with scissors. You will still get 4 per yard. It will just take a little longer to cut out the pieces.
I was in a hurry to finish the napkins so I used my serger and sewed a serged edge on all four sides of each of the 12 napkins. Sergers sew fast so the 48 18 inch seams took about 15 minutes. If I had had more time I would have used the rolled edge serger settings for a very neat hem, but I just changed the thread to match the napkin and used a fairly standard serged edge.
This finish is shown above. A more professional finish can be accomplished with the narrow hem presser foot and a regular sewing machine. The presser foot has a spiral arm that guides the edge of the fabric under and holds it in place while the machine sews over it.
To use this finish, place the right side of the fabric down, lift the edge and place it into the spirals of the presser foot. The first image shows the foot. The fourth image shows a good start and how the fabric rolls. Hint: To make the fabric easier to feed through the foot, you can tie a little piece of thread on the corner of the napkin.
See the second photo above. Use the string to help pull the fabric into the foot. See the second and third photos above. By tugging gently you can help coax the fabric into the foot. Once the needle catches the fabric it gets easier. We are a family of five, with three kids, ages 10, 5, and 2. My youngest children are messy little eaters, and until recently we needed a lot of paper napkins. This is one simple way to reduce waste at home, make our lifestyle more environmentally conscious, and eventually save money, since the cloth napkins usually last for many years before they wear out.
Not to mention they look so much prettier than paper napkins! I can get them wet, too, if I need to clean dirty little hands, sticky fingers and messy faces, and they air-dry quickly after being washed. Disposable paper napkins are environmentally unfriendly because they can never be recyclable. You use them only once and then add trash to crowded landfills.
Cloth napkins can also have a significant environmental impact because producing cotton is not a very eco-friendly process. Besides, you have to use water, detergent, and energy to wash them. However, the extra washing costs for the cloth napkins are rather insignificant, since they take up almost no space in the washing machine — you can just toss them in with other loads of laundry.
Related : How to make reversible fabric coasters.
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