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I try to make my kids teacher’s a handmade gift for the holidays every year. Most years, I have a handmade item and some sort of coordinated food item (teas, baked goods, cookie mix in a jar, etc). In past years, I’ve made travel mug koozies, pot holders (I made a modified version of the MO Star pattern), lanyards, personalized mugs (used the Cricut for that), etc. This year I am making cloth napkins (and we are adding some homemade treats and dry erase board markers to go with them).
So the first hurdle was determining the napkin size. A web search found a range of cloth napkin sizes from 10″ to 22″ squares. Next, I went to my dining room and measured the cloth napkins I made about 10 years ago that we use everyday. They ranged in size from 12″ to 13″ (it’s entirely likely some have shrunk over the years). So next I went to my drawer and dug for my largest ruler, which was a 12 1/2″ square ruler. Well that’s perfect, I am team work smarter not harder and that ruler was in the ballpark of my personal napkin sizes! This size also makes it doable to make 3 napkins from a WOF cut.
Now the fun part – shopping my stash. My daughter helped with this step. I had a number of 18″ WOF cuts and some end of bolt mystery box cuts that we concentrated on (I found that fat quarters were not as efficient as you could only cut one napkin per fat quarter). I pressed the fabric and then got to cutting them out.
Next I headed over to my serger; I have a Brother Lock 1034DX. I set it up for rolled hem. As directed in the owner’s manual I remove the stitch finger and left needle. I then made the following setting machine settings (these are the settings I found work best for my machine, thread type, and fabric type – you can use them as a starting point).
Once you have your settings adjusted and your serger threaded, take a scrap piece of fabric and test the settings. Adjust as needed.
Now that your settings are good, take your first napkin and starting sewing down one side. When you are 1/2″ (1 cm) from the corner, stop with your needle down, turn the napkin 45°, sew across the corner (the corner will get rolled into the thread) for about 5-8 stitches, stop with your needle down, turn the napkin 45°, and continue down the next side. Do this for all corners until you reach where you started. You can sew off straight or ‘clip’ that last corner with another 45° angle. I’m including some images and a video of how to do this.
Bonus Tip – When I first bought my serger I started accruing cones of serger thread. Since cones tend to be pricey, I have 1 or 2 of a given color (ex. I have two true blue cones and two navy blue cones). I’ve found that helps some with getting closer matches to fabrics – serging light blue fabric I can use white and true blue cones mixed together. For some of the napkins I was making, I wanted yellow thread and I only had one cone of yellow. So I looked at the images on my serger that shows the path the fabric takes. I found the green dial would be showing the most.
I put my yellow cone on the green dial thread path, white cones on the other two thread paths, and it worked! The finished napkins have a yellow rolled hem!
I used the same process for some Halloween napkins I am working on for my personal stash. Using purple and dark gray threads for the rolled hem turned out perfectly spooky.
We tried to find fabrics for each set that was related to the subject they teach or just a little whimsy that seems to match their personality. I made 6 napkins per teacher. If the teacher has a bunch of kids they should have enough and if the teacher is single its enough for a week (assuming they eat out once). I hope this helps you make some adorable and functional napkins. The planet 🌎 thanks you.
