Making Cloth Cocktail Napkins

Remember that rummage sale fabric I used to make the pillows? Well I had some left over and decided to make a few cocktail napkins. I like making these a lot because you can mix and match fabrics if you want, they are a nice touch when you have company over, and they make a nice hostess gift, too.

And, let’s not forget, they are super easy to make!

The first thing I did was measure out eight inches square and cut out a piece of fabric. You can be really precise here, or you can do what I did was to just do your best. If it isn’t perfectly square? Oh well.

After cutting the fabric, I then ironed around the edges. I take the raw edge and fold it over once, and then again to make sure there is nothing that will ravel or look ragged on the back of the napkin. If you just wanted to roll the hem over once, you could do that too. (Don’t you love projects that have no rules?)

So what you have is something that will look like this. Now, I have to say that after I did this, I spotted a tutorial for mitered napkin corners. The tutorial talks about regular sized napkins, but I think you could apply the same principle to these smaller cocktail napkins. Up to you.

Then, just sew it all down,

and you’re done.

Isn’t that the cutest little thing? Like I said, even if you have different fabrics, you can mix and match with similar designs and colors. They’re nice to have around and if you stain one behind all recognition, who cares. You can toss it – they are cheap enough to make. Although I have to say that fabrics today are pretty stain resistant, so we’ve been able to keep cloth napkins a long time. Toss them in the wash and they clean up well.

Another thing I like about this project is that you can use up scraps. Don’t we always have a few pieces that we hate to get rid of? This is a nice project for that.