Making a stack of durable cloth napkins is easy to do. In less than an hour, you can construct a dozen beautiful, easy to care for napkins, in six easy steps.

Step 1:

Select a fabric that is made from 80% or greater natural materials, such as cotton, flax, or hemp and wash and dry on high heat to shrink well. Steam iron the fabric from raw edge to raw edge. Cut double 13.5 x 13.5 or 17.5 x 17.5 inches square.

Step 2:

Flip the fabric, face to face.

Step 3:

Stitch around the edge, giving a 1/2 inch allowance, lifting the foot to reposition at the corners, giving the corners a crisper point. Leave a 4 to 5 inch opening to allow for flipping right side out. Cut the four corner tips off to prevent bunching.

Step 4:

Flip inside out, using a round ended bamboo chopstick to re-point the corners.

Step 5:

Iron well, making certain to tuck in edge left to stitch closed.

Step 6:

Stitch over the opening, very close the the edge to hide the stitching, or you can continue all the way around to reinforce and create a nice stiff edging if you want to get creative with napkin folding.

Congratulations on your new cloth napkins. Now it’s time to get creative with folding!