We just spent the weekend with family in the mountains of Northern California.
We ate a lot; we got pretty messy; and we didn't toss a single paper napkin or towel. Last year, a friend gave our aunt 52 homemade cloth napkins as a birthday gift and we used them at every meal.
Our aunt loves the napkins and, as she pointed out, they're very easy to make from just about any sort of fabric.
Our aunt's cloth napkins (all 52 of them) were adorable, extremely soft, and obviously reusable -- she just throws them in with her laundry at the end of the week.
Cloth napkins can be sewn out of just about any salvaged or new fabric, like worn-out flannel sheets, a thrifted tablecloth, old bandanas ... the possibilities are pretty endless.
All that's needed are a few rudimentary sewing skills.
Here's one more useful set of instructions.
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• Top Ten: Paper Towel Alternatives
Image: Via The Felt Mouse; flickr.com
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Ikea sell plain cloth napkins in supercheap packs of 4 (or 6, I can't recall exactly). I customize mine with appliques, freezer paper stencils, ribbon trim, etc. and give as gifts.
view rockfox's profile
What a great idea for Christmas gifts! I like the idea of little stenciled monograms. When I was an exchange student in France, my host family always used cloth napkins and each family member had a monogrammed napkin ring that they used so that they could keep their napkin straight and not have to wash the cloth napkins after every single meal.
Also, if you don't sew, you can buy iron-on hem tape to use instead. I made curtains with this once, and it held up quite well.
view bohemiangirlpdx's profile
I've been using cloth napkins for years, and recommend cotton or lines; polyester is not absorbent. Cloth napkins are so much nicer to use than paper. If you have plenty of them, they just go in regular laundry and take only seconds to fold.
view theora55's profile
My mother used the non-worn edges of an old 100% cotton sheet to make napkins. Because the fabric was tightly woven and old and soft, she just ripped it into squares and did no finishing whatsoever. The napkins had a tiny fringe of frayed fabric, but didn't leave strings or continue to fray. Super easy, though judging which fabrics would behave and which would turn into a snarled mess of strings might be hard.
And I second theora55 - polyester napkins aren't worth the trouble. They absorb nothing. And just because your napkins are cotton, that doesn't mean you'll need to iron them. As long as I don't let them sit wadded tightly in the pile of clean laundry, they come out just fine without ironing.
The best napkins are also not-white. We have black, green, pink, purple, blue...and we use cloth napkins when we eat pizza, because there's no fear of sauce stains. White ones are too much trouble, pretty as they are.
view RMkoske's profile