DIY cloth napkins

Hello and welcome!

Last week I was so busy that I had no time to post about my blog goals for 2020. I usually try to keep them as simple as possible, as I know that if my list is too long I won't be able to fulfill even half of it. So this year's goal is to go green.

I started doing this a bit before Christmas. This holidays season I'm proud to say I didn't buy one single gift package or wrapping paper roll. All our gifts were delivered using either repurposed packages or fabric gift bags.

And now I want to go on doing the same in 2020, with lots of eco-friendly projects and ideas. Making the world a better place is not going to happen overnight, but every little effort counts, right?

So today I'm bringing you my first project of the year: fabric napkins.

Fabric napkins are very easy to make, and there are lots of tutorials online. But, as usual, I wanted to make my own - in a simple and easy way.

The idea for these actually came through my Etsy shop, as someone asked me if I could make fabric napkins and I said yes immediately - because I'm a firm believer we can do anything we set our hearts and minds to do.

So, if you want to forego paper napkins this year, make the right choice - get yourself some cute fabric and sew reusable cloth napkins.




What you will need:

• one square of 55 x 55 cm of fabric for each napkin (because while I was researching about cloth napkins I discovered that apparently there is a standard measure for dinner napkins of 45 x 45 cm...)
• matching sewing thread
• lots of pins

Here's the how to:

First, cut your fabric to size.

Placing the fabric wrong side up, fold the fabric 2.5 cm inwards twice - make one fold, and then another (so 5 cm in total on each side). Because I was making a large batch of napkins I decided to make a 45 x 45 cm cardboard pattern and use it as guidance for the folds.

Secure the folds with pins on all sides, leaving the corners to the end.

Now, for the corners you have two options - you can use mitered corners (I particularly like this tutorial) or you can keep it simpler and just overlap the corners, like I did below:

If your fabric is too thick, you may want to cut a bit off the corner before overlapping, to keep the corners less bulky.

When you have all the hems pinned in place. top stitch all around the edge of the folded fabric:

And your napkin is finished. See? I told you it was easy. The hardest part for me is to get the hems right. Once you do that, everything else falls in place.

Now go sew a bunch of them and you'll never have to use another paper napkin again!

Happy Tuesday!