Heather meet Martha {a napkin tutorial}

Well, Heather Ross might have already met Martha Stewart but I thought a little napkin project would be a great way to reintroduce the two. Actually we were in Harts the other day picking up fabric for a different project. Wouldn't you know it, they put the cutest fabrics right up by the cutting table. This just jumped off the shelf and begged to come home with us - couldn't say no to a request like that.

So, when I made these napkins the first time around I followed Martha's instructions to a T. And let me tell you there's lots and lots of pressing involved. I thought I could do this with a few less steps of pressing. With just one little hiccup I did find a way to simplify the process and I even took pictures a long the way. Sit back and relax... here comes a napkin makin' tutorial...

For starters I cut two 17" squares from my yard of fabric {some day, I'll make another two with the remaining fabric}.

Fold edges over 1/2" and press all the way around.

At the corner, fold so that the pressed edges meet up. It'll look something like this:

Using your ruler line up a perpendicular line with the folded edge of fabric at the top. Place the ruler so that the distance from the line to the pressed edge of the fabric is 1". Draw a line here with a pencil. {repeat for the other 3 corners}

Sew along the 1" line you drew. Repeat for all the corners. Then trim the corner off, leaving a 1/4". Trim at an angle as shown below:

Using your finger, push out the corner you've now added to the napkin and press the seem open.

Holding two adjacent corners, pull gently in opposite directions to straighten out the napkin. And press {just a little more pressing to go. I promise this is a lot less pressing than the original way}.

Flip the corners right side out and press again. The last step is to top stitch around the entire napkin. I did this 1/4" {or so} from the finished edge and than again another time around 1/4" from the top stitch line.

The End. {or repeat till you have enough napkins for a dinner party}