Homemade Cloth Napkins in 5 Easy Steps
I'm all for having a nice setup when hosting a group of people over for dinner. Granted, I can't always do it because I don't have a bagillion place settings when we have team dinners for our cross country kids, but if I can make it happen, I will. In saying that though, nothing peeves me more (that's probably not true..but we'll go with it for now 😉) than to have all the best plates, flatware, and drinking glasses placed on the table and then having to use.....paper napkins. Seriously, ugh. It really makes me cringe. Everything looks so nice, until you spot those blasted paper napkins. Sure, some can be festive and cute, but I think it just ruins the whole feel of trying to make your guests feel like royalty. You went through all that effort to give them the best of what you have, but you couldn't do anything better than paper napkins?
Well my friends, that's all about to end here. Napkins are surprisingly easy to make. All you need is some fabric, matching thread, some scissors, a cutting board, an iron and ironing board, something like a chopstick, and your trusty sewing machine and you're on your way to have the cutest cloth napkins--just like these!
My mother-in-law gave me a TON of fabric a while back from a co-worker who was throwing all of it out. Can you believe my luck? She told her friend to hold up, wait a minute, throw that junk in my car because I'm about to haul all this stuff to my crazy daughter-in-law who is a little nuts about craft project. Okay, she probably didn't say all that, but she did tell the nice lady that she would gladly take all of it because she knew someone who would use it. Enter madness from me. I flipped when I saw 3 big black trash bags full of fabric. Hubby just rolled his eyes as I talked all about how excited I was about all the fabric I didn't have to buy, but to be fair I usually do the same thing when he goes on and on about things too...hahaha. But I was just excited to be able to have some fabric to experiment with. There are tons of things I've never tried to do and wanted to, but didn't want to buy fabric and essentially "waste" it because I didn't know what I was doing.
So what does all this have to do with cloth napkins? Lots. I've had my eye on some fabric that was in one of those gigantic bags and I had it in mind for someone specific. I didn't know what I was going to use it for, but I knew I wouldn't use that fabric to make anything for anyone else except this person. After Thanksgiving I finally knew what I was going to make this person with this fabric. Now, I haven't given these to the recipient yet, so I won't say who they're for. They'll have to wait to find out! Ha!
I got the tutorial for this project from YouTube. She says it only take You can check out that video here. I think this way took a little bit longer to do than the original way I've made cloth napkins before, but I wanted to try it anyway. I'll do another blog post on a second way to make cloth napkins at a later time.
Step 1: Cut 'yo fabric pieces out
I could have put "your" but sometimes saying "'yo" is more fun. Just me? That's okay, you can read it the correct way if you want!
I'll be honest, cutting out big pieces of fabric is not really my favorite thing in the world to do, but it has to be done. I used my big self-healing mat, lip edge ruler, and rotary cutter to cut out 18x18 inch squares from my cotton fabric (I'm pretty sure this pattern came from Joann. Dangerous store..so many cute fabrics!). I really like this self-healing mat because it does just what it says it does--it heals itself! Which means I don't have a scuffed up cutting mat from all the cutting I do. I also really like this lip edge ruler because I can hook the lipped edge against the edge of the cutting board to keep it in the place I want. Win-win.
Step 2: Mark the corners of 'yo fabric
I obviously don't have the fancy mat this lady does in the video, so I made do with what I have on hand. I lined up the corner of my fabric between the lines of a 1" square on my mat to do this step. You're trying to make a 90 degree angle for this part, so I took a smaller 6" square ruler that I have to lie diagonally across the 1 inch square. I drew a line from one corner of the square to the other corner of the square with a water soluble marker, kind of like this one. This step will help you get those really pretty mitered corners you see on blankets, or obviously cloth napkins. Do this to all four corners of your fabric.
Step 3: Sew yo' markings
Take one of the 4 corners you marked and line up the ends of the marking with right sides together (right sides again means the pretty patterned side of your fabric) then pin down the middle with a pin to keep these lines together.
Once you've pinned your fabric together, sew a straight stitch down the line. Make sure to lock your beginning and ending stitches with a back stitch on your machine.
Once you've done that, trim off the excess string and trim down to about a 1/4 inch away from the stitch line...or something like that. I just eyeballed it. Be sure to do this with all 4 corners of your fabric.
Step 4: Press yo' hemlines in place
Here's where you'll need that chopstick, or something of the like. You'll want to turn all the corners right side out so that you can press your hems down. The fabric will naturally fold over for you as you press because of the corners you've already created.
You'll want to fold under those raw edges beneath the hems you've already pressed. Raw edges are the edges of fabric that will fray, and you definitely don't want your napkins to be shedding as you wipe your mouth. Yikes! I had a really tough time with this whole step simply because I couldn't make all the edges of my napkin even. The napkins themselves came out fine once everything was sewn in place, but I just wanted you to be aware (especially if you're OCD about stuff being even) that I personally couldn't get everything perfectly even. There are gadgets for things like this..but I'm not that fancy so I don't have anything like that to help me. But, Press on! Literally. Press that raw edge under!
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The left side shows the raw edges, the right side shows the raw edge tucked under  |
Step 5: Sew yo' hems
Yippee! We've reached the last step! Obviously, you'll want to sew all these nicely pressed edges down. I didn't pin anything down just because everything stayed in place fairly well. I did have to adjust a bit while I was sewing, but it wasn't obnoxious or anything. You could pin if you would rather--it's all personal preference! I did try to sew as close to the folded edge as I could because I wanted to make sure those raw edges were secured. Don't start on a corner because you'll want to do a forward and back stitch to secure your stitches. Start on a side at least half an inch from a corner. Sew around all 4 sides and then, you're done!
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Just to show you where the edge of my fabric is |
Make your napkins look more professionally made by pressing them again. All over. Get out all those wrinkles! If I had an embroidery machine, I totally would have monogrammed these. But alas, I just have your basic sewing machine. Maybe one day I'll be able to monogram everything in sight. A man's worst nightmare....bahahaha.
So pretty, right? What's so great about sewing your own things is that you can have exactly what you envision. You want a certain pattern in a certain color? No problem! Find the fabric, and make it yourself. Your BFF who is obsessed with cloth napkins probably won't have the same napkins as you because you made yours yourself and she bought hers from the store. Ready to kick those paper napkins to the curb? Do iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. I bet these would be even prettier in a linen fabric!
Now go make all the cloth napkins you can stand! 😎
-Jor
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