Sleepless in Santa Maria

What do you do when you are wide awake at 4 a.m.?? Teach yourself how to make a mitered corner hem, of course!!

Lately I have had some trouble sleeping. When I lie down, even for an afternoon nap, my mind races with ideas and projects, mostly sewing projects. Could it be the nesting instinct?? On this particular occasion, I had been awake since 3:30 a.m., and decided to actually get up and be productive if I was going to be awake for awhile. (I was-- I went back to bed at 5:30, just enough time to snuggle for a few minutes before Sean's alarm went off.) I had several ideas or thoughts I wanted to research, so it was a productive morning.

Last time I was at the craft store, I had found some flannel on clearance for $2/yard, so I bought enough to make 16 napkins. I've been wanting to make some cloth napkins for everyday use, partly to spend less in the food/toiletries area of our budget, partly to be "green" and cut down on the disposable paper products we consume. I've transitioned to using mostly cloth rags for cleaning and cooking; it takes us about a year to go through 12 rolls of paper towels. That's still one roll a month, but there are some things like bacon grease that it's nice to be able to clean up and throw away. Anyway.

I had cut out all my napkins, but ran into a problem when hemming them. If you just turn under the edges and make 90-degree folds, the corners are really bulky (and kind of ugly and un-professional-looking). So the other night morning when I was lying awake, I decided to figure out a solution to my problem. I actually found several tutorials, with pictures! It's not super hard to do, and the results are fantastic.

beautiful napkins, folded in half!

Today I finished sewing the last of the napkins, which are roughly 7" x 8.25"-- not the standard 20"x20" dinner napkin, but a nice size for the average meal. (Shall we call them "luncheon napkins"?) Traditional square dinner napkins are pretty huge! I figure I won't feel guilty using one for lunch and tossing it in the laundry.

They are officially DONE and ready to be put into circulation! I'll let you know how we like them.