Being a Little Green With Cloth Napkins

I don't really consider my family 'green' - yes we do drive a Prius as our main vehicle, we recycle as much as we can, we use bio/earth friendly products and yes we try not to use paper products when we can.  Hmmm maybe we are a little 'green'.

 

A few cloth napkins I pulled from our household's cloth napkin pile.

But whatever the label is, I wanted to share one of my favorite things around the house.  It happened out of necessity.  When my oldest was around 2.5 and my younger one was starting solids, I got FED UP with paper napkins.  We would go through dozens at one meal sometimes.  The paper ones would tear, get stuck on their little sticker mouths and hands and even eaten sometimes.  As a solution, I decided to sew up some cloth napkins from fabrics from my stash. 
 

Over a dozen washes and still looking good :)

The sewing wasn't hard, but it took a bit of time since I kept having to sew more and more to keep up with the demands of a growing family (we must have about 80 napkins now - and it usually last us a whole week before washing).  Here we are 3 years later and we are still using cloth napkins.  We keep a stash of emergency paper ones somewhere in the pantry just in case we don't have time to wash or have larger parties.  I don't know about the rest of the family, but I am absolutely hooked on cloth napkins.

I'm sharing this [green and on-going project] at these lovely linky parties.

Looking for some pre-sewn cloth napkins sets?  I have been adding it to my JAQS Fabrics shop HERE.  And through October - enjoy 10% off the whole shop with coupon code JAQSBlog10 for being a JAQS Studio blog reader :).

Red Poppies Flower Tutorial and Napkins

One of my all time favorite flowers are Red Poppies. It was up to me there will be fresh cut poppies around the house at all time - unfortunately they don't make good cut flowers. So here's my compromise:



Fabric Red Poppies :). I had a bit of red fabric and some time on Friday to create something new for the home so I figure I'll make something I really enjoy but don't get to see that often.

These are sitting pretty in the little wooden crate. Originally designed to be part of a napkin topper for decoration:

Here's a quick tutorial of how to make these poppies (makes 6):

Materials:

• 6 strips of red fabric cut 4.5" x 14"
• 6 black fabrics scraps (~4" x 4" each) 
• 6 black fabric strips (1/3" x 6")
• 6 strips of green fabric cut 1.5" x 14"
• 6 bamboo sticks/skewers about 6" each
• hot glue gun
• scissor

Technique:

1. Prep the poppy stem: Wrap each stick with one of the green fabrics - leave about 1/2" exposed where the flower would be attached later on

2. Make the poppy center.  
• Place one of the black fabric scraps on a flat surface and place some stuffing in the middle (I used some cut up fabric scraps).  

• Scrunch up the fabric around the stuffing to make a ball and tie the 'ball' with a strip of the black fabric.  Cut off the excess fabric.

3. Attach the poppy center to the exposed end of the poppy stem with some hot glue

4. Prep the poppy petals.   Cut wavy lines on one of the long sides of each of the red fabric strips.  The cutting doesn't have to be precise to give it a more unique look for each poppy.

5. Attach the poppy petal to the stem.  
• Start with one of the the red fabric strip.  Hot glue a corner against the exposed poppy pen.  Make sure that the wavy end is facing upwards.

• Hot glue a small line against the long uncut end of the fabric strip - pinch and hot glue (if needed) against the poppy stem.  Continue this until the whole red fabric strip is against the step.  Make sure that the exposed stem area is completely covered by the poppy petal and the petal goes all around the stem.  Use a  little bit of hot glue to blue the start of the petal to the end so it forms a neatly enclosed poppy

And voila!  A beautiful poppy.  Make a few or make a bunch.  These are great alone or to use for decor.


Bunch them up for a nice bouquet:


Thanks for visiting and I'll be sharing this tutorial at these lovely LINKY PARTIES.

-Q

Week 1 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas - Napkins

Holiday Napkins & Napkins Rings 

Holiday napkins are an easy way to bring the holidays to any holiday table.  I like to keep mine simple so that it could be used year round if I wanted to.  I put extra flair on it during Christmas with a holiday napkin ring.

A simple but elegant way to make your dinner table a little more festive for the holidays.  These napkins are crisp and ready to use:



Without the napkin rings, these napkins are discrete enough to use year-round so you don't have to hold off till the holidays to use these. I hate having a bunch of seasonal items around the house that we only use once a year.

A nice additional to the table any time of year.


A detailed Tutorial for these Holiday Napkins is found here.

Happy Week 1 of the JAQS 12 Weeks of Christmas! 

Holiday Napkins: Tutorial

A quick tutorial for making simple but festive holiday napkins - decorated for a very special occasion. Color fabrics using Moda 12 Days of Christmas Sample Collection (5" squares).



Materials Needed (to make 6 napkins):

• 6 Moda 12 Days of Christmas Squares (5" squares).  Your choice in prints.  I chose 2 each of blue, green and red with the same print design.  
• Solid white broadcloth (preferably a thick one with a nice thread count)
• Thin craft wire ~72"
• ~72 beads of choice
• 6 small hanging holiday token of choice

1. CUT:  Cut each 5" square Moda fabrics into 4 strips.  Cut Solid broadcloth into 18" x 21" rectangles - 6 of them.
   
2. For each set of cut Moda squared (should be 4 each) sew the short sides together and press flat.
   
   
3. Mark 3" from the short side of the white broadcloth and lay a strip of the Moda fabric along side it.
   
   
4. Pin down the fabric.
   
   
5. Sew about 1/4" from the seam. Then pin down the other side of the Moda strip - about 1/4".
   
   
6. Fold along the seam and pin down as pictured. This will hold all the edges down for sewing. I do it like this to avoid pressing. You could avoid all this pinning if you choice to press down the edges instead.
   
   
7. Sew down the Moda Stripes about 1/16" away from the edges.  Try to use the nicely matched thread for the top and a white thread for the bobbin (back).
   
8. Double fold and sew down the edges for all four sides of the napkin.  And voila! Napkin is complete.
   
9. I didn't take any good pictures of the napkin ring but here is a quick rundown of what I did.

• Cut wires about 12" long - 6 total, one for each napkin. 
• Loop beads through wire and knot each bead with the wire.  Add about 12 beads per wire.
• Fold napkin in half with the Moda striped side facing up.  Roll into a nice neat scroll with the Moda stripes facing out.
• Wrap beaded wire loosely around the napkin
• Add a holiday token or tag (attach to the wire).

There you have it - a nice accent to any holiday table.

Check out this project and much more on JAQS 12 WEEKS of CHRISTMAS.

I will be sharing this on these fabulous linking parties.