Sewing Cloth Napkins: A misadventure.
Rotary Pizza Cutter is not the same as Rotary Fabric Cutting Tool. Ok, you all can stop laughing, this was something I had to learn on my own.
Sunday before Thanksgiving in the good ole’ U.S. of A. I realized that I had forgotten two things:
1) I was going to make a turkey piñata
2) I was going to sew cloth napkins.
You see, I plan these things and then I totally forget the weeks as they drift by. Of course, this always means I am playing catch up around the Holidays, but this time I was not going to let this stop me. No, I was at least going to complete one thing on my list for Thanksgiving even if I am not as experienced with a sewing machine as a lot of my friends are.
This of course had been an idea I wanted to explore last year. At that time, I had the material for the napkins all picked out. Unfortunately, with the ensuing preparations and usual bustle of the season, I had completely forgotten about napkins until it was Thanksgiving Day. I packed the material away and simply forgot I even had any material of the kind. Now, I know that many of you keep a bullet journal specifically to track your crafting materials and yes, I have been meaning to make one of those bullet journal organizers for a while now. It would be nice to see where all my materials are, what types that I had, etc. but ever the procrastinator, I haven’t done so yet. (Watch for a future article!) In the meantime, I simply forget about my material.
This meant that this year I was going to get cloth napkins made, come-what-may. I went to the store and picked out this gorgeous butterscotch buffalo check material and thought that with the white table cloths I had given to me by my Aunt that I could make reversible cloth napkins. Then, I got home and soon I had forgotten about the project as I was grading children’s schoolwork, etc.
Well, October came and went, and I still had forgotten to start my Thanksgiving piñata. I did manage to reorganize my crafting closet and low and behold there was the material I purchased from last year. It had cute pumpkins all over it and this I decided would be the Thanksgiving napkins. And then the week happened and Sunday jumped at me like a cat in the middle of the night when you step on its tail. So I had to meet this of the two projects at least. So I gathered all my material and my measuring tape, my cutting mat, my sewing scissors, my pinking shears, iron, and of course the sewing machine. I stared apprehensively at the sewing machine and then proceeded to get started.
I turned on some movies to keep me entertained and began ironing all of the material I was going to use. (I had already pre-washed the pumpkin material before folding it and putting it away last year so I was good on that. Besides the dryer is dead and that is another long story.
I ironed and then planned the size of napkins I wanted. Now standard size is 16 x 16 which I was unaware of when I bought my first piece of material and it turns out I didn’t have enough material if I did 16in x 16in squares. So I decided ok, I’ll do 14 x 14, and then for the seam allowance, I’ll need it to be 14.5in X 14.5in. That seemed about right. Well, apparently somewhere along the way some of my napkins went a little twisty-weird, this was simply because I lacked a tool that would have made cutting easier and keeping things straight. That of course was a rotary cutting tool. I figured that was mostly for quilters, and I don’t quilt.
Granted I hardly sew, so for me, I thought that would be too much of an expense for something I wouldn’t use a lot, which is odd because I have a sewing machine. Well, I was sitting there thinking to myself “Well, my pizza cutter is round and cutty like a utensil, maybe I could use that?” NO. Let me tell you that it does not work and only leads to frustration and headaches. I tried though! Just in case, you know, it would solve all my problems. It didn’t. So, I went back trying to meticulously cut out at least 10 squares of material (usually 12 is a good number, but I figured 8 in the house and two extra would be good, after all, it’s 2020 and most of the family around me were staying home as well.)
The next morning though, I took the “can return money” (part of my crafting budget) hubby handed me and raced to Hobby Lobby where they had a sale on Fiskars sewing things and got myself a rotary tool. I was ecstatic driving home! Some of my “squares” I was able to shape into proper squares, not some weird attempt at a rhombus or parallelogram. However, in the process of cleaning the shapes, my napkins had been reduced to 13.5in x 13.5 in to be completely even with all the others. The thing is that I have now wondered where this wonderful tool has been all my life? It’s great and made things so much easier to cut and line everything up. Far superior to a pizza cutter any day!
Then it was off to the sewing machine and this is where the emotional struggle sets in. See there are fewer things that intimidate me than the sewing machine. I mean I served in the Army and very little scares me, except bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and sewing machines. I took a deep breath, positioned my material, and nothing. It wouldn’t go when I pressed on the pedal. Anxiety level now starts to climb. I check to see that it’s plugged in. I try it again. Still nothing. And then as I am about to get angry, my 14-year-old daughter walks over and turns on the sewing machine with a smug look and walks away. Brat. So, I check everything again and this time the machine starts up nicely. Somehow I remembered some of the tricks my aunt taught me and I am just happily going along sewing the two pieces right sides together and reminding myself to leave enough opening to turn the napkin right side out. For the first one, I did a great job! I remembered to leave the opening, turned it right side out, ironed it flat, stitched over the top so the opening closed and one napkin was done! The second one… I forgot and had to do that beautiful seam ripping task and then fix it all up, but I did and it was perfect! This was going well until I had to get more thread on my bobbin. This causes me to cry, normally. Somehow the magic of Thanksgiving swept over me and I remembered how to wind the bobbin, load the bobbin properly, and off I was running again. I didn’t make 10 though I made 8 there is enough material I cut to make 2 more. I’ll do that when I pack up all the fall decorations so I have them packed for next year.
After I had made up the napkins, and even got this blog mostly written up I discovered a channel on Youtube with a very good tutorial including measurements and the amount of material you will need to get started. This takes the guesswork out of the project if you also decide you want to have cloth napkins on hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0STCyqmawE Deb’s Days is the Channel and there are some really charming sewing projects on her channel. I love her blog site as well. Check her out, you might find some inspiration! It wouldn’t hurt before starting a cloth napkin sewing project to check out her video. https://www.debsdays.com/search/label/About
And there you have it, I did get one project done for Thanksgiving, AND my husband cooked the meal. It was a quiet dinner with us and the kids, but it was nice. Just remember, sometimes you can improvise, sometimes though make sure you have everything you need or you might be trying to cut material with a steak knife.
