Tag Archives: Sewing

All nice - I like this lower squarish neckline:



In other "backyard" news - I have hoarded collected a bunch of fabric for napkins -


It began with the totally cute "French" chicken fabric though - and I tried mitered corners. There are a lot of really good tutorials for mitered corners - I copied from one of my Martha Stewart books, but next time I'm trying this method from Design Sponge, or this one from The Purl Bee for beautiful hand-sewn napkins. Anyway - here is the Martha-ish way:

Fold your hems over twice and iron the heck out of them (Martha has you measure a 1/2 inch and iron it, then an inch and iron that):


Then you unfold it you will need to see your fold lines since they will be your guide for the next step:


With the right side up, keep the first fold, unfold the second one and fold the corners back so the lines match up and the fold is right at the intersection of the second fold lines - you are making a diagonal across the square made by the ironed folds which will be your sewing line:


Fold the fabric across on the diagonal, and line up the edges:


Sew along the diagonal line, trim and turn inside-out:


Sew nicely around the hem (remember to make the bobbin thread a pretty coordinating color because that will be the top of the napkin)

Voila!

For the next set I figured, heck, these are just napkins, is there a quick and dirty way to miter the corner? So for the under-patient who can over-look a bit of sloppiness - because it just is not as accurate:

Fold over the edge on all sides about a quarter of an inch:


Fold the napkin along the diagonal and eyeball measure about an inch (for a pretty small hem) along the diagonal from the tip of the folded bits and place a pin:


Sew a seam perpendicular to the folded middle edge of the napkin, starting at the place you marked with the pin - use the sewing machine as a guide because the whole point of doing the corners this way is because you are too impatient to mark anything!:


Clip and fold back right-side-out and fix by pressing the heck out of them!


Sew around the edges and they are done! It is REALLY HARD to get a good miter this way because when you are sewing the corner, you are sewing along the bias of the fabric and it wants to shift around. Sewing that perpendicular is harder than it looks! But hey! They are napkins!