Each month of Stitch Club has been so enjoyable and it's felt really good to be consistently hand-stitching again. This month's focus was outline and filled stitches, and I stuck to the program as they say, and did a project suggested in our Stitch Club Journal - embroidered cloth napkins.
For the napkins themselves, I used a lovely Kaleidoscope Bundle offered in Alison Glass' shop with six beautifully cool colors. Purl Soho has a simple fringed napkin tutorial that I followed to the letter (except the size), then added a simple doodle from Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection by Aimee Ray. The stitching of the design was easily done with the use of Wash Away Stitch Stabilizer - I printed the design times six right on a sheet of the stabilizer, then cut them apart and placed one on each napkin.
As luck would have it, I had a partial spool of variegated Sulky 30wt #4021 [Truly Teal] "Blendables" that I used to hem the edge of the fabric squares which I had cut at 16". And then for the doodle-stitching, I used a spool of Wonderfil! variegated perle cotton in mermaid, and I think the consistency of having the embroidery the same on all the napkins really brought the set together.
The one finicky part of the whole project was that even though I tried to cut my fabric squares on-grain, invariably not all four sides were on grain.... some not at all. So that meant for some careful pulling and trimming of threads to make the fringe. I found my Tula Pink Large Ring Micro Tip Scissor invaluable in that trimming, so that certainly helped.
Anyway, that was of minor consequence, as I think the bi-color fringe adds the perfect finishing touch to these napkins, so it was well worth the effort.
Between the beautiful colors of the shot cotton Kaleidoscope fabric, the simple variegated embroidered doodles, and the fact that we use cloth napkins in our home every day, let's just say this was a very satisfying project, and I know we'll put them to good use. Definitely pretty, but made to be used.
If you missed my previous Stitch Club projects, you'll find them here [Kantha], here [Sashiko], and here [Couching]. A quick glance at all my Stitch Club projects can be found here.
these are incredibly beautiful! I know you will get such joy from using them.
ReplyDeleteThe stitching, the fabric choices and the fringe...lovely, and worth every effort.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. This bring back memories for me. When I learned to to this, we would pull a thread (about 3/8" in this case), on all 4 sides. Sew to the left of it by hand; and then pull the rest of the thread. This way, it was mostly straight. But I am going to try this way soon using my sewing machine soon.
ReplyDeleteSo very pretty! You have mad skills. ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat idea and beautiful results. The wash away stabilizer gave good results too.
ReplyDeleteI make my own napkins and potholders and don't think a thing about using them. If I get sauce on one, no problem. But these!!! These are beyond gorgeous! I'm not sure I could use these!
ReplyDeleteGosh, these turned out so pretty, Debbie! First, you chose a lovely range of napkin colors, and I'm impressed that you made them yourself. Then, as you said, the variegated thread used for all the embroideries really putted the set together. Such a lovely embroidery design too. You use cloth napkins every day? I'm smiling because we're uncouth paper towel users. I hope your napkins hold up well to machine washing and drying. They're too lovely to suffer abuse!
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