Homemade Everyday Cloth Napkin (Easy Sewing Pattern)

DIY FABRIC NAPKIN TUTORIAL

Sewing earth-friendly cloth napkins is a great way to save money on paper products and start going zero-waste. This tutorial will show you how to sew a super simple everyday cloth napkin. Sewing your own fabric napkins is fun and an easy peasy sewing project for beginners.

Cloth napkins were once only used for special occasions. Now, they are an everyday use item that saves money and reduces waste.

Another money-saving and zero-waste paper product idea is to make and use unpaper towels instead of expensive disposable paper towels. Keep them handy for drying hands, cleaning up spills, and more. This tutorial will show you how to make unpaper towels by repurposing old towels.

At the end of this article are more zero-waste projects for your home (e.g., grocery tote bag, produce bag, T-shirt yarn, and more).

Sets of four or six cloth napkins make a wonderful housewarming or holiday gift. Pair them with homemade placemats!

Let's get back to making your own cloth napkins! Watch our video or read this post for a photo tutorial with step-by-step instructions.

HOW TO make CLOTH NAPKINs

This napkin, which you will learn today, is the most common way store-bought napkins are finished.  Of course, you can purchase fabric, but these napkins can be a great fabric stash-buster project if you use pretty fabric from your scrap bin.  

If you don't have time to sew napkins but want to support the planet-friendly movement, you can purchase basic and cute cloth napkins on Etsy or Amazon. 

INSTRUCTIONS for DIY cloth napkins

STEP 1: Fabric Preparation

Pick out some beautiful fabrics to use for the cloth napkins.

For the best result, you should prewash/preshrink the fabric in a washing machine.  If you want to prevent fraying when you wash the fabric, check out our tutorial. 

Once the fabric is washed, iron the fabric to remove wrinkles. 

STEP 2: Cutting Fabric For The Cloth Napkin

After the fabric is washed and ironed, cut an 18” x 18” square of fabric with a rotary cutter or scissor and ruler. 18 inch squares are a standard size for dinner napkins.

STEP 3: Cut Corners

If you left the corners intact when hemming the napkin, they would be very bulky and thick. To reduce the bulkiness, a small portion of each corner will be cut off.

To do this, with a sewing gauge, fold each corner toward the center ½” and press.

Cut along the crease line with a scissor.

After cutting the other corners off, your napkin will look like this.

The napkin will be hemmed one side at a time. To hem the first side, place the fabric on the ironing board with the wrong side up. Fold the raw edges of the fabric toward the wrong side and measure with your handy dandy sewing gauge 1/2". Use an iron to press the hem firmly in place.

Fold the fabric 1/2" toward the wrong side again, press, and pin it in several places to secure it.

Before beginning to sew the hem, it is important to consider the bobbin thread. The color in the bobbin will be visible on the front of the napkin. To hem this first side, edge stitch or top stitch with a straight stitch along the inside fold, backstitching at the beginning and end. You could also use some decorative stitches on the sewing machine to add flair.

STEP 5: Repeat 

Repeat step 4 on the other three edges of the napkin. Turn the fabric clockwise or counter-clockwise, fold the fabric 1/2" toward the wrong side, press, fold under again ½”, press, pin and edgestitch.

The above photo shows the back of the napkin.

After hemming all sides, the square napkins are done! Kids would love using cloth napkins when sewn out of fun-themed fabric. You can whip up napkins with holiday prints in no time to create a festive table.

Once you know this technique, you can use it to make tablecloths, table toppers, and many other sewing projects.

We hope you enjoyed this DIY cloth napkin tutorial. Pick out some beautiful fabrics and make napkins for your home to replace paper napkins. You can also make coordinating Reversible Placemats to match the napkins and set a pretty table.

Check out our DIY Kitchen Projects Pinterest Board for lots of sewing, machine embroidery, and quilting projects for the kitchen.   

If you recycle, repurpose, and reuse, you may be interested in our Recycling Craft Projects Pinterest Page. 

Other zero-waste tutorials

• DIY Zero Waste Produce Bag
• How to make dishcloth or washcloth from old towels.
• T-shirt tote bag tutorial
• Fabric Shopping Bag Tutorial
• How to Make T-Shirt Yarn
• Reusable Snack Bags.
• How to Make Plastic Bag Yarn
• How to Sew Reusable Napkins with a Rolled Hem and your serger