Crafty Creations: Cloth Napkins!

Here's another "keepin' me busy" craft! I found this great site that had these adorable cloth napkins, but they were super expensive, and the entire point, at least to me, of using cloth napkins is to cut down on waste and costs. I'm going to be running loads of laundry anyway, why not through in a couple napkins at the end of a meal too, not to mention the cost of paper towels/napkins and how wasteful it is to just grab something, use it once and throw it away!I found some cute fabric at HL that I have loved for a long time, but since I don't have little girls to make things for, I have always passed it by. Our dining room things have this beautiful color of blue in them that I love and this fabric just matched perfectly. The fabric was also on sale, so it was even a better bargain than I had thought of to begin with. There were 3 coordinating fabrics that were cute and then I got the solid blue cotton for the back of all of them, thus lowering the cost even more.

It was so simple- I just got 14 inches of each pattered fabric and 3- 14 inches sections of the solid and then at home cut each section into thirds, giving me 3-14x14 squares of each fabric. This resulted in 9 napkins. Just lay the fabric right sides facing each other and machine sew around the parameter, leaving a 2 in place open to turn the napkin. Turn, then iron making sure to pull your corners and seams out to make nice straight corners and sides. Make sure you also iron your open section under so that all four sides look alike. Now go and topstich with your machine around all four sides(this will close your open spot as well) and you are finished!! So easy!

After, I had picked out my fabric, Grant spotted some cute Cars (TM) fabric as well, so I made him 3 napkins to use. The only difference with them is that I added ric rac to the sides of his to make them a little funkier! If you want to add ric rac to your napkins, this is the first thing you do right after you get your 14x14 squares cut. Just pin the ric rac to the RIGHT side of one of your squares (having the outside edge of the ric rac barely touch the outside edge of your fabric) and sew it on all the way around, then lay both pieces of your square right sides together and follow the above directions. While this takes one extra step, it was actually easier to iron them and get a straight side and good corners because you can tug on the ric rac as you iron and really open the seam.

I can't wait to get to the new house to use them and see if we can totally stop buying paper napkins and paper towels.....I mean, come on, what did people do for centuries before they were invented? Now, toilet paper, we will still be purchasing!