Posted by Sue Landsman on Jun.24, 2009

ⓒiStockPhoto - stephconnell

When you’re trying to reduce your environmental impact on the world, it’s hard to figure out where to start. One thing you can do to reduce your family’s waste and to add a touch of beauty to your life is to make your own cloth napkins. This is very easy to do even if you’re intimidated by fabric stores and don’t know how to sew.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed in a fabric store, and even if you do manage to pick out some fabric, the thought of figuring out how to measure and cut your fabric can be a bit much. One easy way to make your own napkins is to use fat quarters, which are pre-cut sections of fabric made for quilters. Most fabric stores have a large number of these cut, and it’s easy to mix and match so that you have a stack of fabrics that will go together and look nice on a table. Often these fat quarters come bundled in quilt packs so that you don’t even have to match them out yourself.

If you don’t want to go to the store, you can shop for fat quarters online at stores such as Etsy, searching for “quilting fabric” or “fat quarters.” Often you can find coordinating designer fabrics or see fabrics side by side without having to drag actual bolts of fabric out from their cramped space on the store wall.

To make a square from these pieces, just fold one edge up to the other to make a doubled over triangle, then cut off the extra bit. Since you’re going to be washing your napkins, you’ll want to preshrink the fabric by washing and drying them before you sew them. If you don’t, your seams will pucker and make your napkins look bad. Once the napkins come out of the wash, iron them. If you’re not confident about sewing seams, you can iron the edges as you’d like to sew them. To do this, fold over an edge about a quarter of an inch, then fold it over again. Do this a little at a time, ironing each bit so that it remains flat and easy to sew. Make sure you’ve folded over to the underside of the fabric.

You can also fold over the edges like this as you sew. You can sew these by hand, but it’ll take you an awful long time. To sew on a machine, stitch your folded-over edge along one side of the napkin until you get almost to the end, then get ready for the next side by folding over that edge (the one going horizontal to what you’re currently sewing). Here’s how I like to make my corners: once you’ve folded over the far edge, sew over it almost to the edge of the fabric, and then, with the needle in the down position, raise the foot and turn the fabric that you are sewing towards the corner. Sew almost to the edge, then repeat until you get almost to the edge of the second folded part, then turn and continue to sew along the whole length of the napkin. Repeat at each corner. This will give you a sewn square in each corner, which will hold down the fabric nicely and give you a nice, lasting edge.

If you’re using cloth napkins, it’s important to have enough that you never have to break out the paper ones. For my family, we have one napkin per person per day. The fat quarter napkins are large enough that they can be refolded to show a clean area. I hadn’t realized how much we were wasting paper napkins until I found that the cloth napkins, after my boys “used” them, were totally and utterly clean. The paper napkins would get thrown away, but the cloth ones they can just keep out until they’re actually dirty. We keep the napkins in a wicker basket, and each child picks his or her own out each day, so it’s always clear whose is whose. If you prefer to have matching napkins, you can have your children leave their napkin in their “spot” at the table. Using our beautiful napkins makes each meal special, and they lend a certain continuity to our meals. Ironing the napkins is also a good chore for an older child, while the younger ones can fold them and return them to the basket. If you don’t have time to deal with ironing and folding, you can just keep your napkins in a pile in a bin.

The only problem I’ve found with my cloth napkins is that it’s hard to stop shopping for fat quarters! Fortunately, sets of napkins make great gifts.

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Posted under Home Environment, Kitchen & Bath.