The Farmer in the Dell: How Many Trees Does It Take To Wipe My Mouth?

They make any meal more fancy, they earn a lot more respect than their disposable counterparts, the cloth napkin is ready for it's comeback! We don't think twice about using a cloth napkin at dinner time or for spills but I know some people we have had over are afraid to even use them during the meal. No, they don't bite and yes they do wash out!

We save money and trees by not using paper and I love to have the different patterns and colors to liven up the table. The National Resources Defense Counsel estimates that if every home in the US replaced one 250 count package of paper napkins with recycled/cloth we could save 1 million trees! The average tree can make 28, 750 napkins, which sounds like a lot, but the average person uses 2,200 of them per/year! Why waste the trees on a napkin when there are better things to use our natural resources for. Once you make a napkin stash you wouldn't have to buy another package again!

The kind we use are lined but you can just cut out a square of fabric and hem the edges if you want. To make a lined version is really simple too all you will need is:

Cotton fabric, preferably a pattern and solid that coordinate
Sweing machine
Thread

First you will want to cut out your squares, you can make them whatever size you like just make sure the squares are all the same size; mine are 11"x11".

Then you want to put the pattern and the outer part of the solid fabric facing each other so you can't see the pattern any more. this is going to be the inside of your napkin.

Fold a little bit of the edges down on both sides.

Now sew around the edges of the square, very close to the edge, slightly rounding the corners and leaving about a 2"-4" space on one side, not at a corner, un-sewn.