Monday Design Wall – 10/3
Short Attention Span Girl
random bits on food, quilting and gardening
Not long ago I spotted these clever little napkin rings on the Me and My Sister blog. I knew I had just the use for them. A couple of months ago we went to the food truck dinner at the local fair grounds. It was really fun – lots of food trucks, tons of good things to eat. The not so fun was that the trucks ran short of things like napkins and forks and cupcakes. I figured next time we’d bring our own utensils. That would solve some of the problems (though we’d still have to buy our cupcakes first if we wanted them) and we would get to eat of real silverware which I much prefer to plastic.
Friday is next time, so I really needed to get going if I was going to make this happen.
I decided that I wasn’t going to make my own cloth napkins. I also didn’t want to use cloth napkins we already had because, frankly, where’s the fun in that? I decided messy food deserved something really sturdy so I bought dishtowels to use for napkins. Then I rummaged through my fabric and found something that mostly matched.
Me, being me, I had to fiddle with the pattern. I decided to go with just one fabric. The batting was eliminated. I also decided to eliminate the raw edges because I am not a fan.
Instead I cut a strip of fabric 2 1/2″ wide. I cut a strip of fusible interfacing 2″ wide. Center the interfacing on the fabric and press.
Fold that strip together with the pretty side in and sew a 1/4″ seam down the long side. Then I pressed the seam open.
Now, the only tricky part is to turn that tube of fabric right side out. I pin a safety pin to one edge and use that as my little handle to push the fabric tube around; there are fancy gadgets for this job out there too. Use what works for you.
Give your pretty tube a press. I went with the seam in the center. If you didn’t want the seam to show, run it down the side.
Cut that tube into 9″ lengths.
With the help of my seam ripper I tucked the raw edges on the short sides of the tubes in. Aim for about 1/4″ turned under, but really as long as it’s even and big enough to sew down you’re good.
Place two 1″ D rings at one end of the strip. Fold 1/2″ – 3/4″ of the tube around the rings and pin.
I used a matching thread to topstitch all around the strip. I started with the short pinned side to secure the rings in place, down the long side, across the bottom to secure those raw edges and back up the last side. Contrasting thread could be fun too. Go crazy!
Then, if you are me, you only put one ring in the napkin ring. (Did you catch that in the picture?) So then you will unpick your stitching, add a second ring and do it again.
If you followed the directions you are golden and with two rings in there you can make the napkin ring work.
Before you know it, you’ll be all set for a food truck dinner, a potluck or picnic or even a very civilized dinner at home.
Because, really, how cute are they?
See what clever sewing the other quilters are up to over at Judy’s.
- – marcella
What a great idea!! I’m thinking Christmas! Thanks for the directions and now I’m off to see if I can find enough towels.
Hey — terrific job on the re-work of this project! They look terrific and I think I may give this a try! (Thanks for already trying the one ring and figuring out that it doesn’t work — saves me the work.) Have a great week!