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Rustybobn Sews Cloth Napkins

Friday, July 22, 2005

One of the items on my short list of projects was some new table napkins. (My British friends get an odd look on their faces when I ask for a napkin at the table, but I'm not sure what they think a napkin is, exactly.) At any rate, I despise those flimsy paper ones, so we use cloth napkins at every meal. Before the Flylady came into my life, I used to find my stock of napkins at yard sales (along with a lot of other jumble). Most people get them for gifts and never use them, so you can pick up nice ones for very little. Too bad I couldn't avoid buying little chachkas here and there along with Grandma's heirloom linen napkins.

Flylady frowns on bringing home more clutter--especially other people's cast off clutter, so I shun yard sales now. This avoidance of bringing home more "stuff", along with carting off carloads to charity collection boxes has gone far to clear my own house. ("You can't organize clutter!")

My need for napkins complemented my need to trim down stash quite nicely. Finding myself free last evening, I located some lengths of suitable fabric and cut them up into 18 inch squares.

When I made my Christmas napkins, I had worked out a method for hemming that created what appeared to be mitred corners. Naturally, it took several tries to accomplish this, and I did not remember it precisely until I had already completed the hems (poorly) on about 5 of the new napkins.

I decided to journal these instructions so that I could review them before I attempted to make napkins again. I don't know if this is an original method or if I read it somewhere and only half remembered it. All I know is that it works. My MIL thought I had really mitred the Christmas napkins--high praise in my book!

	After cutting the napkins to 18 inches square, press in 1/2 inch around the perimeter of the napkin. The finished hem will be about 1/4 inch.
	Turn under the raw edge to meet the fold and stitch in place. Start stitching in the middle of one of the sides, not at a corner.
	As you approach the corner, turn under the approaching edge and hold in place with a pin or your fingers. Fold in all the way to the raw edge.
	This is the tricky part (so tricky it takes two photos): Fold the corner of the side that you are stitching up and over into a triangle and position the folded edge so that the corner looks like a mitre.
	Continue stitching around the corner of the napkin and proceed down the second side.
	Not bad, eh?, and IMHO no more difficult than doing a rolled edge on a serger. I like this a lot better than a rolled edge--especially the one my serger produces!

This should be a feat I could accomplish at the end of a project. If the fabric is suitable and the scrap large enough, cut a napkin and hem it. The napkins would all be hemmed with matching thread, and I'd never run short again!