Holiday Gift Blog Hop: Day 4

Christmas countdown: 20 days!

Are you ready?

This week, we'll be sharing tutorials for last-minute homemade gift ideas. Skip the stores (well, except your local quilt shop!) and spend time at your sewing 

machine instead. 

Today Kristen from KD Quilts is here, sharing a super-easy tutorial for making mitered corner cloth napkins. As in so easy, you'll never use paper napkins again (well, maybe that's not true--that would be a lot of washing!). Kristen used a couple prints from the ultra cool Boy Meets Girl collection from Kanvas. Mod flowers and a large-scale herringbone--perfect for any table setting! Check out Kristen's tutorial and and at the end you'll see how you can enter to win a 

fat quarter bundle of the Boy Meets Girl prints.

The holidays are here! And with the holidays comes parties (and hostess gifts), and little tokens of friendship to neighbors and friends. During this busy season, there's not a lot of time to create, but that doesn't mean you have to write off handmade gifts! Benartex fabrics put together a list of some great tutorials for those last minute handmade gift ideas. I love cloth napkins. With two small children, we go through a lot of paper towels and so it's nice to use cloth when possible....and they don't have to be saved for special meals! I'm sharing a super quick tutorial on self binding, mitered corner napkins today. In about 30 minutes, you can have a set of four cloth napkins that are great for everyday!

Self Binding Napkins

When you go purchase cloth dinner napkins, they are typically 16-18 inches. I like the large dinner napkins since they are easily folded into fun shapes, so I chose to make 18 inch napkins. This tutorial is easily adjusted for any size napkin. Obviously, the smaller the napkin, the more you can get from your fabric. Add 1/2 inch to your squares from the desired finished size. I also made my binding large on the front. For a more narrow binding, reduce the measurement on the larger square. (I made mine 2 inches larger)

You need:

Four 5/8 yard cuts yield four dinner size napkins

rotary cutting and basic sewing supplies

Cutting:

18.5 inch square for front/interior

20.5 inch square for back/binding

Let's Begin:

Fold both pieces in half, then half again and heavily press. These creases will identify center points.

 

 Right sides together, line up center points at one side. Pin in place and sew with a 1/4 inch seam, stopping 1/4 inch from the end.

   

 Slide the next side to the edge. Match up center points, pin, sew again. Repeat for all four sides, leaving a hole in one side for turning. Your corners won't look perfect. In fact, they look kinda flopy and weird. This is normal.

 

 

 Fold napkin so that stitches from two edges meet. This will make a point at one of your corners.

 

 Trim off excess from where stitches end. Sew down the trimmed edge.  

 Turn through the hole you left. Make sure all the corners are sharp. Chopsticks work great for this! Press the bottom down so the back/binding comes up. (This reminded me of a shallow bowl.)

Take the napkin to the ironing board and fold down the binding. The corners should all meet up nicely. Press. A lot. If you are a glue baster, this would be a great time to do so.

  

 Top stitch 1/8 inch around the edge. Press one last time for a super crisp, flat napkin.

 

 That's it! Easy peasy. Napkins can make a great gift paired with some kitchen/cooking/baking goodies or even used for wrapping a bottle of wine.

 

Thank you, Benartex Fabrics, for having me today as part of your blog hop! I have been loving all of the gift ideas!

Thanks Kristen!
Head over to Kristen's blog to find out how you can win a fat quarter bundle of the Boy Meets Girl fabric collection.

Check out our other quick and easy holiday gift tutorials!
Day 1: Baby blocks using Safari Playground

Day 2: Travel sewing kit using Made with Love

Day 3: Berry basket of coasters using Origins
Day 5: Bow banner using Zoey
Day 6: Handy golf bag using On the Green