Bringing Out the Crafter Within - Sewing Your Own Napkins

About a month ago, we ran out of paper towels and I decided I wasn't going to buy any more and we would just use rags. So far rags have been working great and I don't even miss the paper towels. I recently noticed that we were running low on napkins and thought I would run the numbers on the cost of napkins and see if it was worth sewing my own cloth napkins.

It really seems that you could either save a decent amount or it could cost you the same amount. This is assuming you use a napkin at every meal and then throw it away.

A family of four will eat about 4380 meals in one year.

Paper napkins cost about .83 per 100 or $36.35 for one year.

You are able to get about 4 napkins (depending on size) per yard so assuming the fabric is $1 - $2 per yard it would cost about $9 - $18 for 36 napkins. 36 napkins would last you for three days before you needed to wash them again Also, I am not going to factor in cost of washing and drying them because they wouldn't make their own load and you can throw them in with another load. Finally, I am not sure how long cloth napkins would last, but if you replaced them all once by the end of the year you would have spent around $18 - $36. The saving could either be about half the cost of paper or no saving at all.

Of course, if you were able to find fabric cheaper or already had fabric laying around the house it would certainly be worth making them. You might also be able to find cloth napkins at a thrift store or garage sale which are cheaper than making them yourself and you save yourself some time.

After all that, I decided I would make some napkins because I had some extra cloth so it wouldn't cost me anything to make them, cloth napkins are much prettier, and I just felt like sewing something that I knew I couldn't mess up. :)

I will post the progress and finished product in a couple of days, but until then check out the below links on sewing napkins.

I am thinking of doing this type of napkin.

Here are instructions for a napkin with mitered or straight corner.

A very simple napkin for those who don't sew.