Napkins

  We recently came back from a cruise and one of the things that really struck me on the boat was the napkins. Every set of cutlery was wrapped in a huge napkin, regardless of whether you were in the main dining room or at one of the many cafeteria style dining venues. It reminded me a lot of my Grandparents home where you always had your own napkin and napkin ring to use when visiting. We have a lot of guests and go through a lot of paper towel and paper napkins, I thought it would be great to start using real napkins again to save all the paper waste. The one thing I loved about the napkins on the cruise was the size, they completely covered your lap with fabric to spare, not a tiny little napkin that you still manage to get food on yourself while using. I made up my own template for the napkins, going with a 22" x 22" square.

  For the fabric I used a nice soft white cotton sheet i picked up at community league fabric sale, someone was selling off their whole fabric stash. I manage to get 11 napkins out of the sheet. I then used the roll hem on my serger to give the edges a nice clean finish I didnt' take any fabric off the edges as i ran it through, i just ran the fabric along the inside of the blade to maintain the size.

  For a finishing touch I used my embroidery machine and embroidered each napkin with our frequent guests initials so each person would have their own to use while visiting.

I used the Cirque Alphabet from Urban Threads for the initials. Now I just need to collect some antique napkin rings to use with them.