A Somewhat Vintage Touch in the Dining Room

 I make no attempt to hide my love of all things vintage. I love classic movies, big band music and the way a home used to be run. I think that is my I love my mother- and grandmother-in-law. They do things a little more old fashioned. It's because of them I have learned to can vegetables and fruits (grandma told me last weekend about how they would can beef and when you opened that on a winter day, it made the best beef and gravy to have with potatoes), I've learned to sew, and I've been striving to make things myself. Back in the day, people made things to last, not be disposable. Plus I'm cheap.

If I can make it and it will save me money, that's what I do. That includes laundry soap, dog toys, blankets and clothes, home decor and now a basic necessity: dinner table napkins.
I realized I didn't think that much about putting paper towels on the table with the meal, until I had to spend the money to buy more. I had an epiphany: why am I spending money on something I am just going to throw away!?! Cloth napkins just make more sense - I do laundry anyway so what's a few more pieces of cloth to throw in?

So I dug through stash and found the above remnant. I love it! It looks great in my dining room and I already had it. Then I went to Pinterest, and started searching for a good tutorial on how to make these. I found this one on tiny rolled hems, and since it had lots of pictures, I used it.

It was about 29"x44" and I cut out six 12" squares to start with. I also set up my ironing board so that as I finished a seam all I had to do was swivel around, press what was needed and get back to sewing. Even with that convenience, it still took me 30 minutes per napkin!

I am so happy with the end result though. The only difficulty I had was with the last couple of corners. It caught frustrating trying to get the machine to move the material when starting at the edge of like six layers of materials. You can see how small the hems ended up being, and how pretty they look on my new tablecloth.

With so much fabric in my stash, I am wanting to make a lot more of these. I am anxious to try a mitered corner for some. (And I really want a bunch for holiday meals!) But that is a project for another day - I have lots more sewing to get done before the holidays...