Easy Binding Spring-inspired Fabric Napkins

Hey, everybody. I want to welcome you to some sewing. We are going to be doing a really quick and easy sewing pattern. My name is Emily and I love easy sewing patterns because I happen to be a crafter that kind of dabble in a lot of different things. Sometimes I sew, sometimes I paint, sometimes I doodle. Actually, I doodle every day. But I love easy sewing patterns because A I can always get my kids involved because my daughter is very interested in sewing and learning the sewing machine. And B I'm a very instant gratification, instant satisfaction kind of crafter. So maybe you're like me and this pattern will be super awesome for you. All of the, all of the notes for this pattern are available in a PDF and that is available in the link in the description for you to download. But I also want to point out that we have a chat box going and I'm gonna check in on that chat box. I would love for you to pop in any questions you have or any ideas you have because I really love when we're able to get this community together. And kind of be a one crafting making community and we can kind of pop ideas back and forth to each other because I am always the kind of crafter that says just because I do it one way, doesn't mean that there's not another better way to do it. So I love hearing from you. I also love hearing where you are and this um craft actually happens to be kind of like Spring Easter inspired. So if you're feeling in the springy mood or if you're feeling in the almost, it's almost Easter time mood, I would love to hear what you're making or how you're celebrating or just kind of generally what is inspiring you the spring season. So pop that in the comments or any questions you have, pop that in the comments because I'd love to hear from you. So, um this pattern that I made, I just want, I just wanna show this to you. We use fabric napkins in our house all the time because quite frankly, I was just talking with some friends that it feels so frivolous to buy things. You're just gonna throw away like napkins and toilet paper and paper towels. And while I know they're necessary in life, this feels like an easy solution to kind of cut that waste or cut that cost. And maybe you're like, no, I will never use that. That's ok too because this pattern is easily adaptable to a place mat or a table runner just with the concept that we're gonna do to make it kind of like self binding or self kind of finishing along the edge. So still follow along even if you're not a fabric napkin person, because I wanna show you actually just how simple these are. Um It's literally just two rectangles, straight stitches and kind of some side angles. So if you see this is just one of them, I opened and I picked a floral motif because I did want these to be spring inspired and potentially use them for Easter Table Decor. But all this is is two pieces of fabric, a bigger piece of fabric with a smaller piece of fabric and have some nice kind of beveled edge details. And if you look super closely, my beveled edges aren't perfect and I want to give you the freedom to not make yours perfect either, but they're a really quick. So, and they're even quicker if you want to make a handful of them by kind of like cutting and uh factory cutting and you know, kind of mass producing by cutting all the middle rectangles out first and then all the bigger rectangles out second and just kind of, you know, doing each step kind of together. So they're very fast. I wanna show you how to do them. They come together in one of those um kind of trust the process patterns because halfway through you'll go oh my gosh, this is not working. And as a matter of fact, in my brain when I was making this, I could like, visualize what I was doing and I couldn't get it to work because I was like, this isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right. And lo and behold, it was right the whole time, but it doesn't look right as we're doing it. So um again, all of the pattern, actual step by step instructions along with all the cutting notes, everything with detailed photos is in the PDF which is that link that's in the description for you to to download. Um Oh Linda's from Ontario, Canada, Canada. Hi Linda. It's very warm up here in um Minnesota, Wisconsin Midwest area. So I hope it's warm where you are too unseasonably warm. Um OK. So I actually pre cut out some fabrics here because I just did that. So I have and it's in the notes as well that the um the trim and the backing is the same fabric. So in this case, I have pink and then the front is going to be this kind of floral and I actually did this. Isn't this so funny when you make two pieces out of the same or two things, similar things out of the same fabric. This fabric looks so much more orangey when it has an orange trim versus when it has the pink trim, I always think that's so fun to play with fabrics. I chose um solids for my sides and my backing just because I feel like I love, it's like it adds a frame around the picture. So your back, which will also become your trim is uh 16 by 16 and then your front, which is the front or the smaller size will be 12 by 12. So you can enlarge it or make it smaller. The math. I'm just gonna like give you two seconds of the snippet of the math. It is four inches bigger. So it's two inches bigger on both sides, right? If that makes sense, which means it gives me just over an inch of an edge. That was kind of the math I did. And in my brain, I thought, ok, two inches would be right. But 12 plus one plus one plus one plus one is 16 if that makes any sense. So if you want to make a place mat, just make sure that you have four inches bigger on both sides to get an inch, um, border or an inch edge or an inch 10, if that's what whatever you wanna call it and you can adjust that math accordingly. But that was my thought process with that. So the first step is to mark the middles of um, both of your fabrics. You can do this with an iron, you can do this with your fingers. I like to use the heat of my fingers because I feel like it works really well. So I'm going to just simply fold my fabrics in half and it doesn't have to be perfect. But I wanna find the middles because I'm gonna match up my middles to kind of center this in the bigger fabric and you can use an iron if this works. But I'm just using the heat of my hand and kind of pinching, pressing right here and all I need is just, it's probably super hard to see, but I can see it just that little crease lengthwise and width wise so that I can identify where the middle of my fabrics are. It's maybe easier to see on the back. I don't know if you can see that little crease but just use the heat of your fingers or an iron. You could use a pin. I um I just don't love pinning. It sounds very lame of me. I don't love pinning because I feel like you always just take the pins right back out. Um For, for, for a step like this, I will pin eventually, but for a step like this, I just, I don't love it because I feel like I can never make them precise. So I see my 1234 creases and I'm gonna do the same thing to my backing or my edging, whatever you wanna call it. I think in the pattern, I reference this piece of fabric as the backing fabric just using the heat of my hand and pushing. Maybe this means you should really have a good hot cup of coffee before you sew. Or maybe you should have a hot cup of coffee. So, your hands are nice and warm as you keep sewing. Ok. Oh, that's funny because this, oh, funny. That was on a crease. I should have maybe noticed that we have a few more people joining in, in the chat cat from Longview, Washington. I really love to hear people's, um, spring. I feel like spring is one of those seasons where you make a lot, at least I make a lot because I just get like after Christmas, you know, when you're making a ton of gifts, it feels like you get back, I get back into the making mood when the weather starts getting warmer with bright colored fabrics and great paint colors. Ok. So 1234, which you kind of maybe can see. I don't know if you can see that and then 1234. So what I'm gonna do my solid is just a solid. So there's no right or wrong side, but you are gonna do right sides together and this is where it kind of starts to beginning of the trust the process. So I'm going to grab four pins, all of which that are straight and some of these are a little bit crooked. So let's get rid of those and I'm simply just going to match up where those um creases are and do your very best. It doesn't have to be perfect, but try your best and then just stick a pin there. So this is one side and then this is where it's gonna pucker a little bit. So I'm gonna match up my crease with my crease on this side. See you're kind of centering it in the center of the, um, centering the small square in the center of the big square, which means you'll have a lot of extra fabric because it's four inches difference in dimension. So match this up and then the side as well. Oops, there is that there we go ta da. So um the next step is I wanted to tell you two things. One, we're gonna se our edges and it's gonna be weird, but we're gonna kind of move the background fabric around and out of the way two, make sure this is the step. I always forget when I'm making a pattern like this, make sure to leave an opening because you wanna flip your napkin right side out at some point. I always forget that part and then I end up like having to take something out. So just keep that in mind and perhaps I will do the same thing right now. I don't know, sometimes I get so into making so what I do to remember myself to, to remind myself to give myself an opening is I usually try now watch I'm gonna forget but grab two different colored pins. So I'm just gonna use red so that I remember to start and stop and leave an opening and I'm just going to pin. Um, it seems to me that leaving an opening is the easiest on a straight side. So I'm gonna just pick the middle of the straight side, one straight side right here and I'm gonna put my two red pins matching up my edges right here in hopes that I remember not to sew that, that part. But, um essentially we're going to sew each straight stitch along the edge, leaving a quarter of an inch on each of the sides. Um Here's what you could do and this is maybe you have a magic solution that you wanna give to me that I just don't have right now. But if you feel like you have a way, this is what I was trying to do when I was figuring out this pattern. So maybe you have a secret solution that you can tell me if you have a way that you can sit all the way around the edge without creasing the corner, fill me in because I tried and tried and tried and tried for no less than a gazillion hours and couldn't make it work and maybe there is no solution because it's so big. Um, like the, the back background is so big, but maybe you have a solution either way, I'm going to pin my edges flush to each other, knowing that I'm going to a straight stitch leaving a quarter of an inch on each side, which would, in theory be the, um, seam allowance. So, it's gonna be weird because you're gonna end up with these floppy corners. And that's how, you know you're doing it right as if you have these kind, the, the fa, the excess fabric ends in the corners, I guess is how, maybe how I should word it. And if you don't want to pin, you don't have to pin, you can wing it and just see how it works. I would recommend pinning. Oh my word. We have somebody from Egypt and South Africa. Oh, wow. This feels very important. I love that you're here. If maybe you can, maybe there's other Spring or Easter tra traditions that you have um in other countries. I would love to hear about that. These feel like very simple napkins that maybe could translate to other family gatherings. Ok? See how I said that the excess will be in the corners. That's how we want it to look. So I'm, I'm probably adding far too many pins but you know, just make sure that it's great. So again, I know I just said this but we are gonna do a straight stitch on all four sides, leaving an opening in the middle where it will be turned and leaving the quarter inch seam allowance in the corners. And the reason is, is you don't want to overlap or pucker this fabric. We want to leave this sort of like flower petal looking excess in the corner right there. So I'm gonna go over to my sewing machine. I'm gonna pull it in just a little bit here and I'm going to start on the side that doesn't have the opening just to get myself going here and leaving a quarter of an inch for my seam allowance. I'm just going to straight stitch right along the edge or here. Let me just say this. It doesn't even have to be a quarter of an inch. You can pick whatever seam allowance you want. It could be half an inch, eight eighth of an inch, whatever it is. As long as it's the same across the entire, um, fabric napkin and it's the same in the corners. I feel like quarter of an inch is my go to simply because it's nice and sturdy and strong and great. And if you want to back stitch in the corners, you can my sewing machine that's on really slow stitching because my daughter used it last and I'll just remove my pins. As I go, I hate sewing over pins. I would recommend not doing that. I've broken more needles than I can ever tell you by sewing over pins and some people swear by it and I can't get it to work. Ok. So as I'm coming to the edge, it might be a little hard to see. But as I'm coming to the edge, I wanna make sure that my edge remains flush along the edge and I keep that excess fabric in the corners and I'm just gonna stop and then cut. This is why this is kind of a simple pattern because I love that. It's just straight stitches, see straight stitch, da da da right, right along the side. I'm leaving my fabric in the corner. So now when I go to this other side, I'm simply going to spin it and then move the fabric. So it's out of the way because I don't want to pucker my corner, my corners. I wanna leave those flat because we want them to be able to turn right side out and be that nice, cool, be beveled edge. And you'll see. Ok, here, here's how I know I did this right. If I'm lining up my quarter of an inch on my sewing machine, it basically comes to where my last seam of my quarter of an inch, quarter of an inch ended. If you have a little bit of a space, it's not going to be that big of a deal. Honestly, because you will end up, um, beveling that edge and top stitching over it anyway, straight stitch. I pulled my pin out too soon. There we go and just make sure everything is lining up. You can go as slow as faster. You want as you want. And if you are mass producing these and making a handful at a time, it's so great because you can kind of just see everything come together in the same steps. All right, these pins are done and then I'm on to my neck side. So I'm moving my fabric, pivoting my whole napkin, moving my fabric so that it's nice and flush leaving all my fabric in the corners. This is, again, trust your process because this feels wrong. But I promise you, it's right. Promise you. It's right. Pinky. Swear. I always feel like I'm reminding my daughter when she's sewing and this is just a good time to remind you, um, to never pull your fabric in the back as you're sewing, especially with a project like this because you'll screw your tension up and tension is kind of like how tight or loose the fabric is kind of with how the needle and the thread go through the fabric and you don't want to offset what you're doing so that it won't lay correctly. You want your machine to do the work for you? Whoa OK. There we go. Nice and close. So I'm to the point, I'm to my edge where I have my opening. This is where I have to remind myself that I wanna keep the opening. So I have my two red pins and I'm not gonna sew between my two red pins. So I'm just gonna start stop. Pick up, start, stop because I wanna leave that opening and we'll top stitch it closed in the end. It's just so we can turn it right side out. Um OK. I'm gonna check in on these comments super fast. Um, sewing. Oh, yes. Everybody is sewing. Holy moly. I'm loving all these sewing projects that people are talking about. This is fun. Ronald is a, is likes to fix machines and collect them. I feel like we all love you because you're the kind of person that inspires us to be able to troubleshoot, inspires me to be able to troubleshoot when something goes wrong with my machine. That's pretty awesome. OK. Stopping because I will forget if I don't say it out loud cut and then I'm just gonna go straight across same, same allowance. It doesn't even need to be that big of an opening. I may be leaving it too big. Um But I wanna just be able to turn it right side out pretty easily. Oh, this last one, I always have to be a little careful because I wanna make sure that it doesn't pull in the corner. Ok. So this is what it will look like. It'll look a little weird. It's really, you're gonna think this is too, this is wrong. This is the part of the process where I kept tear, tearing out the fabric and putting it back together going. This isn't right. This isn't right. And you can kind of visualize if you squish it flat, how this is gonna be. I wanna reference the pattern. So if you have the PDF download in this situation, I wanna show you. So this will be step right here. We're on this. No, we're past this step. We are on step four. I um I screwed this up first like five times. I did it because I did it backwards. And this is the only part of the process that matters to make sure you get your beveled edge as a correct beveled edge instead of a three dimensional side. I don't know if I'm saying that right? Because if you don't line up with your folded edge and you line up with your straight edge, it's gonna end up being a three dimensional side. I have the photos to show you and I'm gonna show you four different times on my fabric so that you can see it's not hard. I feel like I'm probably explaining it harder than it is. So I'm gonna move this stuff out of the way. Oh Super good question, Evelyn. You were asking how can these napkins be laundered and cared for? I throw them in. So here's a two second um kind of process on how we do our napkins at our house. We have a um just like IKEA basket. It's just like a wire basket that's next to our sink. So when my kids are like, hopefully when my kids are clearing their dishes, they throw the napkin in that, that little basket and like our towels and things go in there and then every time I'm doing laundry, I just grab what's out of there and throw them in with the other laundry. I don't sort colors. I'm not that kind of laundry person. So perhaps you will say this is a really bad idea and I need you to be doing your laundry better. That is a suggestion. I don't know, I just throw it in with everything. The one thing and I should have maybe pointed this out at the very beginning. Um, kind of fabric like a little like two second fabric, 101, if you have, um, a lot of people will tell you to pre wash your fabric. And the reason you pre wash your fabric is because it takes out all the sizing and the sizing is, um, you know, when you get a, a article of clothing and you bring it home and it shrinks like a teeny bit 10% I think is what they normally say. That's because it's getting out all the sizing. I don't, I don't even know what sizing is. I think it's like just to whatever your fabric is gonna shrink a tiny bit. So if you use two pieces of fabric, one of them washed and 11 of them prewashed and one of them not your fabric is probably gonna pull away from each other because one will shrink and the other won't because one of them will already have been shrunk. I never pre wash my fabric. That's just a choice I made. I probably every quilter will say that is the worst idea in the world and I kind of is, but it doesn't bother me, especially for napkins because these ones, um, because they're just so simple. They just have the simple edging and the simple center even if they shrink and they end up not perfectly square when they're shrunk. I don't mind it because it's just a um I don't know, it's a utility thing in our house, right? Like, so I throw them in with laundry. I don't pre wash my fabric. You can, if you really want to, you can iron them as you go as you're taking out clothes. I never iron anything in my house. The one thing about this pattern that I did that does work and then I'll be done talking about this is um I've made other fabric napkin patterns before and after you wash them like a Bezu Lion times, they get really kind of crunchy, especially around the edges. These, the reason this pattern came to me is because adding this top stitch around the edge for the front and the back, which is kind of like a binding on a quilt um will hopefully alleviate in my brain that will alleviate the problem. So that only this part can get a little, like, not flat if it absolutely has to. But the rest of the, the um, napkin won't, I don't know, maybe check in with me in two years and ask me how these fabric napkins are doing. We've used fabric napkins since uh my kids were super young and now my kids are not super young anymore and I love the process. I love that my kids can just throw them in the basket and then I take that and it's just part of my laundry process. Yeah, this is also 100% cotton. So maybe if you're using something that's not 100% cotton, that might need a little bit more care if you're making these for like a wedding and they have like a silk edging or something. That's probably a different story. I hope that answers your question. OK. So um this is the part that tripped me up a little bit. Here's what I mean by, I'm gonna pull this right to the center and it shows in the photos right here in the photos of the PDF download. But what you'll wanna do is go, you're gonna miter your corners, which means you're gonna put them at a 45 degree angle. I have this handy dandy uh ruler that has angles on it for me. I love that because I'm not really much of a math person. So this helps me if you have a um cutting board or cutting math that has angles on it. Or even if you have like one of these smaller ones, this will work. This has actually the written angles. We're going for a 45 degree angle because 45 and 45 make 90 which will be the corner of your napkin. You don't have that um, a straight edge like a completely straight edge, like just a regular ruler will also do, you just have to be careful of kind of how it fits on the side. So here's what you're gonna do. Pull apart your two inside and outside, you're going to find each corner, right, each extra corner by laying the corner, leave the bulk to the side and you're laying the corner with the folded side up or the folded side away from you and essentially you're going to match up the do the best you can because it's a lot of extra fabric and it feels super janky and you're gonna go with this. Is that working? What you're going to do is match up so that this is straight, your edge is straight and your, your, I don't know, fold. Now, you can see, I actually if you're really getting picky, I didn't sew this perfectly straight because my edge is not perfectly straight. So if you do not have a 45 degree angle mark, here's how you would do this and it shows in the photos you are going to line up the top edge, I'm gonna use not this huge one, you are going to line up the top edge. So this top edge of your ruler or the top edge of your straight little ledge or something, you could use a cardboard box, I guess if you really wanted to with your fold right here. So this is flush with this because what this is going to do is give you a great 9045 degree angle. When you, when you sew it, you're going to want to match. I'm gonna say this right and hopefully ask questions if this feels confusing. The top edge is flush with your fold and this edge you're gonna scooch over so that it almost hits your uh sorry that it hits your seam allowance but doesn't overlap with your, with your floral in my case, floral or your inside fabric. I'm gonna say that one more time. You want to make your top of your ruler flush with the top of the fold and move your right side over so that it is almost flush or flush with your seam allowance but does not overlap the inside fabric because just visualize it for two seconds with me. If you overlap and you sew this fabric right here, this inside fabric, it's gonna have a pucker on the edge. Well, there's a teeny pucker right here. It's gonna have a pucker on the edge instead of lay flat, you don't want to pucker this inside fabric. You want it to lay flat. So, all I'm gonna do is take a marker, a pencil, um, pen, whatever you have. I have a mechanical pencil that I took for my kids homework bucket and I'm going to just draw where I will sew. That's all I'm gonna do. Just draw where I'm in a sew. Do you see that line? It's probably kind of hard to see. I'm just gonna draw where I'm in a sew and you'll end up cutting off if you look closely, this is a 90 degree angle and this is a 45 degree angle. So if I'm using my ruler, right, that has a 45 degree angle mark on it. I see that this is a 45 degree angle because it's going right on 45 degrees and this is obviously 90 because it's making that 90 degree angle. That makes sense. Please ask questions if it doesn't or refer to the PDF, I'm going to do um, all four of my corners. And this is an awesome question, Jill, you're asking on a scale of 1 to 10. How, how would you rate the difficulty of this project like a three only because of these corners? It is not hard at all. And I say that um with the full understanding that I am not a precise sewer. So for me, maybe it feels a little bit easier because I'm like, well, if the corners are a little puckered. It's ok because this is just a napkin and I'm just having fun sewing. Um, I don't think this is a tricky project because it's all straight stitches. And the only thing that is tricky are these mitered corners and I wouldn't even call them super tricky because you're able to use, not even full. Um, you don't even need like specific materials to make this happen. Holy moly. I keep moving this. That's my, my take on it because all we will do now is then just so do do do do do and it will end up being an awesome corner. OK. One, wait, what did I just do? This one? I did that one already. This one do this on all four line this up. Make the fold away from you. If the fold is towards you, your, your um angle is not gonna be right, your edge will not be right. I promise you 100% pinky promise it's not gonna be right because that is gonna make a boxy corner. I did it like 16 times and I'm like, this isn't working and got frustrated and walked away from my sewing machine and then came back to it after I had a revelation in the shower going. I think I did that backwards. OK. See this one, this is not perfectly square either, but I think there's room in sewing. I really just, I love sewing because it's instant and it's also like, in my opinion, doesn't have to be exactly perfect if you're trying to make the most perfect quilt in the world with the best corners. And perhaps that is not that I, I, that, that is harder to, in my opinion, because it has to be all square and all right. Ok. So now I'm gonna do is go back to my sewing machine and just stitch these corners. That's all I'm doing straight stitch those corners doesn't matter. Um There's no seam allowance. You're stitching right on the line, making sure again that this edge is flush. So stitch tata street stitch right across and you can tell whoops, I have threads everywhere. Holy moly, I'm gonna clip that. Um Just so you can see, you can tell right here that my quarter inch that I sewed when we were making our straight stitches didn't go all the way all the way to the very edge. But when you open it, you can see that this makes a nice, like you can kind of backwards, visualize, maybe, maybe not, but it's OK that this doesn't go all the way to the edge. If I really wanted to be picky, I could now go back in and sew that to the very edge if I really wanted to, but we're gonna top stitch it and it will stay close. I'm not gonna, um I'm not gonna, um, it, it, it won't fall apart is what I'm trying to say, there we go. Another one, another one. There you go. I was on it. There you go. Straight stitch and last one. So all four corners you will straight stitch. Is this making sense? Make sure you, you jot a comment because sometimes things are making, make sense in my head and I wanna make sure they make sense in translation so that you can easily make these. OK. All right. So this is what they look like with the little tails, right? The little sewn tails. So all I'm gonna do is you can use a straight um edge if you really want to or you can just carefully cut or use your rotary to get rid of that ex these excess corners if you're feeling like, oh my word. I don't know that I did it right. Here's a little test. Um cut one of the corners. Where's my here? Cut one of the corners. This is cool. This is the one of those aha moments. Cut one of the corners and um oh turn it right side out just to give it a quick test to see and it's not ironed and it won't be perfectly flat, but you'll get the idea. See, you can see how it's. Wow. Oh, this one I haven't cut yet. That's why there's extra fabric there. Did I cut this one? I don't know, but there we go. You can see and you can actually see my corner isn't perfect, but it's a nice 45 degree ankle. It'll make you kind of feel like a rock star. A geo geometry, rock star. I feel like when you do this. So that's kind of like a test. And what I did, um, in my very first, if you, if you're apprehensive on exactly where to, to stitch this line, what you can do is stitch one of them and you always can re stitch over it and move the line in and move line in if you absolutely have to. I found that just moving that, that 45 degree angle not overlapping with the front fabric is kind of the the ticket. Did I do all four? Hang on 123. Here we go. Last 14. W there's a lot of strings right here. OK. 1234 ta da So now this is how quick this pro project is. It's taken us what, 20 minutes? And that's with me really explaining everything. So now we will flip this right side out and push the corners out and if you see that they're not perfect, you can go in and trim extra fabric off, you can adjust. Um I wanna adjust one so you can see. Oh, here's a good uh Yeah, maybe that's a good one to adjust. OK. So I'm gonna show you how I would adjust one. Here's, here's I'm gonna show you. So do you see how right here and this might be tricky to see how this. Well, first of all, this seam is coming out just a tiny bit. But do you see how there's a little bit extra? If I try to lay this flat, there's a little bit extra fabric in this corner, that means I can move my seam in word, a tiny bit. Maybe I'm confusing you by doing this, but I just wanna show you how you can troubleshoot your problem. So I'm gonna move this seam over by like a smidge because I want to just get rid of that extra um that extra uh pucker, I guess would be the word I would use. Probably pucker. So I'm moving it over. I don't know, this is probably an eighth of an inch. See, I just moved it over and that can get rid of the pucker. Ha ha. There we go. See. See now it lays way more flat. Does that make sense? I hope that, I hope that makes sense that how you can troubleshoot it. All right. Look how easy this is. Makes me wanna sit down and just sew all day. Turn on a good movie and sew some awesome napkins. So poke your corners out. I use a pencil or a knitting needle or a crochet hook or a marker or a pen or, I don't know, there's a million ways you can just poke your corners out so they're nice and flat, trim any pieces of um string you have, but see how right here. Right. It's not iron. So it's kind of pulling in weird spots. But this is the beginning of the kind of the finishing process. So I'm gonna get my iron quick and I'm going to press this really flat because sewing is, if you're a knitter, you know, that, um, blocking your patterns, blocking your stuff is like the thing that makes it look professional. Pressing, makes it look professional. And if I'm sure you've heard people talk about pressing versus ironing, um Some people have a preference pressing means you're just literally pressing. And in this case, this is probably what you wanna do. You don't necessarily need to go back and forth because our edges are already worked out. But once you press this nice and flat, you'll feel like you are the best sewer in the planet because it will look amazing. Soest in the planet I think is the word, our last step is to top stitch. So if you're seeing little moments, like right here, I'm seeing a little moment where like this little stitch is coming, not necessarily undone, but I probably didn't anchor it. Well, it's OK. It's not gonna actually come undone because we'll top stitch right around the edge here. So, so speaking of top stitching, um right here where this opening is, that's our like, you know, three inch ish opening. Um What I try to do and again, if you have a better tip for this. Please pipe up in the comments because I would love to hear your thoughts. I want to try and make sure that this stays straight. So I kind of just like work. There we go. The um lick your fingers if you have to and you're gonna kind of wiggle this orange fabric in my case, the floral fabric out so it matches and looks like it's kind of a seamless scene that it's always been there, although that I didn't quite do that 100% right. But here let me, there we go because I want my uh pink binding fabric to be under underneath. So that when it sews it's catching the binding fabric underneath and then the uh orange floral on top if that makes sense because I want to stitch it completely closed in a straight line. If possible, the corners to me are what are especially important for ironing to make sure that everything is nice and flat because that's what you don't want to. Um you know, I was talking about, about uh washing your Atkins and that's what I don't want to kind of like roll or get like wonky. And honestly, if you look at this, you can see that this angle is a little bit, it's not quite 90 degrees. The other ones are pretty darn close to 90 degrees. You know, my math eye that I have OK. It's probably good enough. I probably could iron that thing for a long time. I'm just gonna set my, pressing me off to the side and then all I'm gonna do is top stitch and you can choose. I did it both ways. Actually, on some of these, you can top stitch. Um on the, you know, top stitching is technically, I believe an eighth of an inch or even smaller to the edge of something. That's what the kind of the term top stitch means you can top stitch that's closest to the edge of the inside of your fabric or the edge of the outside of your fabric. I don't know that it super matters. I always choose the inside just because I feel like that's what really works. Um In a perfect world, I would always choose a top stitch, uh thread and color that's like wacky and different because I really love seeing the top stitching on something, the finishing on something just like how I love to see the uh quilting on a quilt I think is really cool. So I'm just going to line this up. I'm going to anchor my stitch. So you can either do the backwards forwards to anchor that top stitch or I like to just my machine has a button that goes up and down and up and down like five or six times. And then I'm just gonna slowly give myself that really close to the edge. It's not quite stitching in the ditch or stitching in that, um, edge, but it's really darn close to it. It doesn't have to be perfect because you probably won't see it if you're using just like a simple fabric. When you get to your edge, don't cut your fabric. Keep your needle down, lift your foot and pivot the whole piece of fabric and then keep going straight. I love after I've ironed this because I feel like it's kind of no nonsense stitching. You really can't go wrong here. Get to the edge, leave your needle down, lift up your foot. So you can pivot. This is where sewing is so satisfying. You see such accomplishment, I think. Anyway, pivot, oh, I'm gonna go like one stitch further. There we go pivot and this is my last side. So when I get back up to the top, I just wanna anchor that stitch one more time. Top stitching is really just a finishing stitch, but I don't want it to ever come undone because then it will separate the two layers of fabric. And I don't want that ta da so literally that simple, that easy. Um And you can see, I haven't trimmed this little like excess right here, but you can see you have a nice square edge, which this would be 12 by 12 in size. Just the same size as our first, the cut that we made and then are a little bit smaller, I guess because our finished napkin is 14 by 14, I believe if my math is right. Yeah. Well, like 13.5 to 14, just depending on what your seam allowance is. So, if you're trying to aim for a finished napkin size, it will be one inch bigger than the size that you cut your inside. I hope I didn't just confuse you with saying that. Um So yeah, my last step now is just to trim all of these extra threads, which I only have my rotary cutter. I don't have my scissors nearby, but that's OK. I'm just gonna trim up these little pieces. And if you want to, you can throw your napkins in the wash to start with. If you haven't washed your fabric, I don't mind. Um But maybe that is something you wanna choose to do and then fold this up and voila. So I do have to tell you that the pattern at the very top says at the very top right here talks about having a pom pom tie. Well, I'm just gonna be fully transparent. I forgot my pom poms at home today. But my thought was if you wanted to use these for um spring or a spring gathering or maybe Mother's Day or an Easter brunch or something that when you tied this up with a nice little pom pom, it looked very Eastery and spring and summery because little balls of fluff are very happy and wonderful for this time of the year. So I hope this has inspired you. I'm gonna check the comments one more time just to make sure I'm not missing anything. Um But hopefully everything is very kind of detailed in this PDF that you can download with the link in the description so that you can make some of your own napkins. Thanks so much for joining us. This was so fun and I hope that I've inspired you to make some spring projects and especially these fabric napkins.