The cloth napkin; you simply can't ask for an easier home décor project. If you are just getting started or teaching someone else, napkins are an instant-gratification winner. If you're already a pro, they're a fast and fun project; and this time of year, a perfect host & hostess gift to whip out in an afternoon before your evening festivities. We kick ours up a notch with beautiful decorative stitching all around the edge and a coordinating fabric napkin ring that "ties" together all the beautiful mix-and-match patterns. As part of our final 2011 Artist Trio Series with Free Spirit Fabrics, this project features more of the Classic Modern designs of Joel Dewberry's Heirloom Collection: traditional florals paired with contemporary graphic motifs.

We used the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 12000 with its 9mm stitch for our napkins, but just about every sewing machine, even the basic ones, have at least a few decorative stitches built in. This is a great project to try out some of those pretty stitches.

We used the same fabric on the front and back of our napkins because the prints in Joel's Heirloom collection are so rich and vibrant we felt we had plenty of mixing and matching happening by varying prints napkin to napkin. A different front and back might have made our dinner guest unable to concentrate on the turkey and gravy. To learn more about Joel Dewberry, read our Artist Trio Interview.

Our thanks to Free Spirit Fabrics for sponsoring all of our 2011 Artist Trio Series. If you are as in-love with Joel Dewberry's Heirloom as we are, stay tuned. There's an amazing Great Giveaway coming up.

Heirloom is availabe in stores and online now. Check out the selection available from these Shopping Directory online fabric retailers:

CityCraft

Fabric.com

Fashionable Fabrics

Fat Quarter Shop

Ribbon Retreat + Fabric

Sewing Tools You Need

• Any Sewing Machine (we recommend the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 12000)
• Satin Stitch foot (optional)
• ¼ Inch Seam foot (optional)

Fabric and Other Supplies

Our napkins are 20" x 20" finished, and are double-sided. This means you need at least two 21" x 21" squares of fabric to make one napkin. If you're working with 44-45" wide fabric, as we usually are, this means you need at least 21" in length. If you get ⅔ of a yard, that is 24" - plenty of length and at 44-45", plenty of width. In fact, you will have just enough left to make the napkin ties from your scraps.

That said, your napkins will look so much better if you can

The ingredients below are for ONE napkin and ONE tie.

• ⅔ - ¾ yard of 44-45" wide fabric; for our four mix-and-match napkins we used four different fabrics from Joel Dewberry's Heirloom Collection for Free Spirit Fabrics: Blockprint Blossom in Amethyst from the Sapphire palette; Rose Bouquet in Gold, Paisley in Garnet and Chrysanthemum in Blush - all from the Ruby palette
• Scrap (apx 9" x 4") of fabric for napkin ties, we chose one fabric from Heirloom in order to "tie" all the mix-and-match napkins into a coordinated set; we used Opal in Gold from the Ruby palette
• Optional: scrap of lightweight fusible interfacing for the napkin tie - one piece 2" x 7".
  INTERFACING NOTE: With the quality of the Joel Dewberry Heirloom fabric, we felt our ties were stable enough using just two layers of fabric and so did not add the interfacing. If the fabric you choose is quite lightweight, we suggest adding this stabilizer. For the same reason, we did not stabilize the edge of napkins prior to decorative stitching. Instead, we relied on the two layers of the fabric plus the seam allowances to provide stability, which worked just great.
• ONE 1" - 1½" button; we used a 1" wooden button
• ½ yard of thin ribbon, cording or suede for the ties; we used a deep red suede
• All purpose thread in colors to match fabric
• Contrasting all purpose thread for decorative stitching
• See-through ruler
• Fabric pencil
• Iron and ironing board
• Scissors or rotary cutter and mat
• Straight pins
• Seam gauge

Getting Started

1. From each fabric for your napkins, fussy cut TWO 21" x 21" squares.
2. From each fabric for the ties, fussy cut TWO 8" x 3" strips.
3. We recommend a rotary cutter for cutting squares. It's faster and more accurate. If using a rotary cutter for the first time, we have a detailed explanation of the proper use of this tool in our article on Quilting Basics.
   NOTE: Need help selecting a rotary cutter that best suits your needs? Check out our Buying Guide on rotary cutting products.

At Your Sewing Machine & Ironing Board

Napkins

1. Place the napkin front and back squares right sides together. Pin around all four sides, leaving a small opening in the middle of one side for turning.
   
2. Using a ½" seam allowance, stitch around all four sides, stopping and starting at either side of the opening you have left for turning. Remember to stop at each corner, with your needle in the down position, and pivot.
3. Clip the corners at a diagonal, but be careful not to clip into your stitching.
4. Turn the napkin right side out. Using a long, blunt-end tool, such as a large knitting needle or a chopstick, poke out each corner so it is nice and sharp.
5. Press well, turning in the raw edges of the opening so they are flush with the sewn seam. Pin opening closed.
   
6. Re-thread your machine with contrasting thread in the top and bobbin.
7. Following the instruction manual, set up your machine for decorative stitching. Choose a decorative stitch that will stand out nicely against your fabric. We chose Heirloom stitch #39 on the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 12000, which is the same stitch we will use on the matching placemats later in the series.
8. If you are new to decorative stitching, we have a recent helpful article on the topic.
9. Stitch around all four sides of the napkin, using the decorative stitch. How far away from the edge you are will depend on the width of your stitch and your personal preference. I was using a 9mm wide stitch on the Horizon MC12000 and positioned it so the center of the stitch was ⅜" from the edge of the napkin. This not only looked best, it allowed me to simply use the outside edge of my presser foot as a guide for keeping the stitch straight.
   
10. Go slowly and carefully watch your foot. It took me about 20 minutes or 5 minutes per side to do my stitching.

Turning corners with a decorative stitch

There are several ways to turn corners with a decorative stitch and each has its positives and negatives. I'm sure our alert S4H fans may have some of their own tips as well. If so, please leave a comment below.

The most important step is to TEST before you start stitching on your finished napkin.

The first option is to stitch into your corner and stop with your needle in the down position. You will need to judge when your decorative stitch is complete. Some people can do this simply by watching; some machines are clever enough to help. On my Janome, when I press the Lock Stitch key, the stitch will keep going to its finish point and then stop. Once stopped, lift up the presser foot and rotate the fabric 90˚. Drop the presser foot and start stitching again down the new side. You will end up with a diagonal stitch at the corner, which may or may not look wacky, depending on the stitch you chose. Positives: it's easy and you just keep stitching with no stops. Negatives: you have to 'eyeball' the stop point, which can mess up the consistent distance away from the edge, and that diagonal stitch at the turn can look odd.

The second option is similar to the first, but you make a two-step turn. Follow the same steps as above, but when you get to the corner, turn just 45˚ to start, take a few stitches (it's usually best to make these stitches with the handwheel rather than the foot control), stop again with the needle down and turn an additional 45˚ to complete the corner. Positives: again, it's easy and you just keep stitching with no stops, and you eliminate the odd diagonal stitch. Negatives: you still have to 'eyeball' the stop point, which can still mess up the consistent distance away from the edge, and although you did eliminate the diagonal stitch, depending on the stitch chosen and your accuracy, you can end up with some overstitching at the corners.

A third option is to stitch into the corner and finish your stitch just short of the seam allowance. In other words, my seam allowance was ⅜" so I stopped approximately ¼" from the edge. Lock the stitch and cut the thread. Remove the napkin from the machine, rotate it 90˚, and re-position it under the presser foot, lining up the start point of the new row of stitching so it is the proper distance from the new edge and centered on the previous row. Drop the needle and start stitching. Positives: the distance of the stitch from the edge stays perfectly consistent all around, and the start and stop points are more 'measured' and less of an 'guesstimate.' Negatives: there will be overstitching at the corner, which you may not like, depending on the type of stitch you've chosen.

I chose option three, because for this application, I felt the consistent distant from the edge was the most important. Also, in my testing, the heirloom decorative stitch I chose wasn't too negatively impacted by the overstitching at the corners.

With all the options listed above, I would recommend starting your stitching at a corner point rather than in the middle of the side; in most cases, it will be less noticeable.

As I mentioned above, there are probably other ways to 'corner' that our S4H friends can add. I love to use my decorative stitches, but do not consider myself to be the ultimate expert on the topic.

Also, many of the higher-end sewing machines, including my Janome, will allow you to actually calculate and adjust stitches so an exact number of stitches can be set for a specific length, allowing you to create perfect corners. Awesome if you can do that, but the options above are listed as techniques that can be used on any machine.

But the NUMBER ONE, most important tip: test, test and test again!! Better to use up a little extra thread and a few scraps than to ruin a napkin. Decorative stitches are no fun to try to take out with a seam ripper.

Napkin Ties

1. Place two 8" x 3" strips right sides together. Pin, leaving a small opening for turning.
2. Using a ½" seam allowance, stitch around all four sides, stopping and starting at either side of the opening you have left for turning. Remember to stop at each corner, with your needle in the down position, and pivot.
   
3. Clip the corners at a diagonal, but be careful not to clip into your stitching. Trim back the seam allowance to ¼" except at the opening, leave the full ½" allowance there.
   
4. Turn the tie right side out. Using a long, blunt-end tool, such as a large knitting needle or a chopstick, poke out each corner so it is nice and sharp.
5. Press well, turning in the raw edges of the opening so they are flush with the sewn seam. Pin opening closed.
6. Increase the stitch length and topstitch ¼" from the edge around all four sides, remembering again to pivot at each corner. The topstitching will close the opening. Press again. I used my ¼ inch foot to keep my topstitching consistent. 
   
7. Sew a button in the exact center of the tie. Be careful with your stitching so you create a pretty "X" stitch from the front and neat little "x" on the back. You will see the stitching from both sides. If you are new to this, check out our
8. Wrap your ribbon, cording or suede around the button and tie a secure knot.
   
9. Trim the short end so it disappears under the button. Test wrap a napkin to determine if your long end needs to be trimmed. I cut mine to a finished length of about 15".
   NOTE: Tying the cord around the button will 'crimp' the fabric a bit. Stretch the fabric back out all the around the button to flatten and then press well from the back (right over the button) and from the front (all around the button).

Contributors

Project Design: Alicia Thommas
Sample Creation: Liz Johnson

Other machines suitable for this project include the Baby Lock Audrey and the Brother Laura Ashley Innov-is NX800.