I am really excited to show you my Spring tablescape later this week but first I wanted to share a tutorial for the cloth napkins that I made to go with it. Last summer I shared a tutorial for simple DIY cloth napkins so if you are a beginner sewer you may want to start with those and move up to these napkins. These napkins are not difficult but just have a few more steps. 😉 These are DIY cloth napkins with mitered corners and trim. Floral trim to be more exact making them so pretty and feminine.  I LOVE them!! ♥ ♥ ♥

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For this project you will need:

• 2 yards fabric of your choice – I used 100% cotton duck Waverly fabric in Lipstick color. You will get 6 napkins from this amount of fabric.
• Floral Trim – I got mine at Walmart and used about 7 yards but I could not find it online. Similar options here and here.
• Cutting mat, rotary cutter and 24″ ruler – this is optional, you can just use scissors to cut your fabric but this makes cutting fabric so much easier!
• 6″ square ruler
• Sewing machine (this is a newer version of the one I use)
• Iron
• Scissors
• Sewing gauge
• Water Soluble Chalk Marking Pencil
• Thread

The first step is to always to wash and iron your fabric before working on a project. This will limit shrinking & color bleeding later and you will be happier! 🙂 The finished size of my napkins are 18×18″ so I cut my fabric 20×20″ to allow for the double fold hems on all sides. I like to iron my hems lines in before mitering the corners of the napkins. I feel like it is easier to get the corners to fold under later.

Using your sewing gauge, measure and fold over a 1/2″ hem to the wrong side (or bottom side) of the fabric. The fabric I used does not have a right or wrong side but yours may and you will want to pay attention to that. Iron this fold down working your way along the edge of the fabric. After you have the whole side done, fold it down onto itself and iron again.  These are the first steps to a double fold hem.  This type of hem hides raw edges and limits fraying. Continue this on all four sides of your napkin.

Sewing a Mitered Corner

Some people have trouble with mitered corners but they are fairly simple. To begin, take your water soluble pencil and mark the 1/2″ and 1″ lines coming into each corner. These lines will be clearly seen from your iron folds but it makes it even easier to see them when they are marked. Make sure to mark on the wrong side of the fabric. You don’t have to mark along the whole edge. These lines should intersect as shown below. Using your 6″ square ruler and rotary cutter cut off the corner at the ends of the 1″ marked lines.

Fold the corner down so the ends of the cut edge meet up with the 1″ marked lines. You can see how your iron lines can also help in lining this up. Iron this fold. Open the ironed fold up and you will want to mark a dotted line on the fold between the 1/2″ lines.

This is where it can get a little tricky. Fold this corner in half (right sides together) so you can still see your markings. Sew along the dotted line. Make sure to back stitch at the beginning and end.

Now turn that sewed portion right side out so that the sew line is tucked up inside the corner. Use your pencil to push the extra fabric up and to make a pointed tip on the corner like the picture below.

This is where your previous ironed folds come into play. They make it easier to fold under the raw edge. Iron this mitered corner down. You can also put a pin in it to help hold it in place while you work on the other three corners.

After you get all four corners ready to go, it is time to sew them down with a coordinating color of thread. You can use a 1/8″-1/4″ seam allowance to sew your napkins. I like to use the inside left edge of my presser foot attachment as a guide. It is easier to start in the middle of one of the sides, not in a corner. As you come to a corner, sew until you get to the diagonal line of the mitered corner. Leaving your needle down, lift your presser foot and turn the corner continuing to sew around all four sides.

This method leaves you with a perfect mitered corner! 🙂

Adding trim to napkins

Adding trim to napkins is super easy and it makes a huge statement. It turns ordinary plain napkins into more elegant and extravagant looking napkins. Realistically you don’t have to have mitered corners on your napkins to add trim. You can add trim to napkins like I sewed in my simple DIY cloth napkins tutorial.  This would be an easier way to do it if you do not want to sew a mitered corner. Honestly, I ended up sewing some of them this way to save some time. Ha! Measure out the trim to what length you will need, leaving a little extra on the end.

I tried to cut the flowers at the edge and not in the middle of them. If you are worried about the trim fraying, you can always add some fray check to the cut ends.

Line up the bottom edge of the trim with the edge of the napkin. There will be a little of the flowers hanging over but I think this adds interest.

Using a zigzag stitch, I sewed the trim down. My stitch length was 1.5 and my stitch width was 3.0 for this trim. I decided to use white thread on top and a coordinating color bobbin thread.  This resulted in a cleaner look on the underside of the napkin.

Add the trim to opposing sides of the napkins. You could also add it to all four sides but I liked the look of it on just two sides. Oh yeah and make sure you iron the napkins again before taking pictures of them for your blog! Oops!! 😉

Isn’t the trim fun?  It adds so much to the napkins and to your tablescape. There are lots of ways to style them as well. Here is a sneak peek at my citrus and floral spring tablescape using these napkins!

See you back on Thursday to share the rest of my tablescape! Have a wonderful day!