Napkins

I finally completed a sewing project! Too bad I didn't get a good picture of it.

We use cloth napkins in our house, but the adult-size ones can be a bit big for a two-year-old to handle. Not that it doesn't take an acre of cloth to mop her up after a meal, it just requires an adult-size hand to do it. She picked out this fabric a few months back, when we ventured into the Hellmouth Wal-Mart near our house to check out their "We're No Longer Going to Carry Fabric, So Get It Now" sale. I don't do cartoon characters and tried to talk her out of it, but she was quite insistent. There was less than a yard, so I took it home and tried to figure out what to do with it. No way in hell was I going to turn it into apparel. Just...no.

One day at dinner watching her fumble with a cloth napkin bigger than her head, I realized this would be the perfect use, not to mention an easy project to ease me back into sewing. How hard could it be to hem some squares?

Um...a little harder than I thought, actually. This machine has no needle up/needle down feature, so turning was tricky. It took me at least one napkin to get used to the rhythm of the machine. I burned my fingers twice pressing the hems before sewing. I couldn't quite figure out the corners. This machine really HATES sewing through more than a couple layers of fabric. I had a copy of Weekend Sewing that I borrowed from the library, but I couldn't quite figure out the instructions for mitered corners, and I thought maybe I needed a heavier needle to go through the layers, but wouldn't that make the rest of the stitching come out funny, since it was only a couple layers? By this point I had 2.5 of 5 napkins done, it was 1:00 a.m., I couldn't find my multi-pack of spare needles, and I decided to just do my best and try harder with the next batch. They came out okay, but I could've done better.

Piper likes them, although she spends a lot of time stuffing them into her backpack and carrying them around or using them as blankets to make beds for her dinosaurs, stuffed animals, and dolls. They have actually gotten a some use as napkins - there are only four in this picture because the other one was used during a breakfast of strawberry pancakes, which meant it was very much in need of a trip through the washer.