Napkins for Easter

Easter is a lovely low-key holiday around here, providing me with the perfect opportunity to whip up some new napkins for our annual breakfast with the neighbors. Such a simple project, and yet one that I had never bothered to try before. I so enjoyed it that I will probably make them for every occasion and every-day use too.

For today's breakfast I wanted something with a slightly spring-y pattern but I'm not crazy about pastels or typical spring motifs. I had this fabric, called European Taupe by Kinkame (Japan) in my stash and it seemed perfect for a spring breakfast. (European Taupe is no longer in production but has been followed up by equally beautiful and similarly styled European Taupe collections II - V.) With the help of a favorite book of mine, Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross, a project was born. (This book unfortunately has lots of errata in the instructions but no matter, it's still a visually inspiring book with lots of great projects and yes, I would recommend it to anyone.)

I used two different prints for the cotton tops and because I wanted to conserve the print fabric I decided to back them in solids. For the European Taupe I used a linen-look cotton from Joann (frustrated as I get with that store, it's useful sometimes) and on the green print (also from Joann) I used a Kona cotton in off-white. I adore the look of the linen knock-off with the floral, though it is a bit thick and my napkins don't lay quite right. I've decided to come to peace with the imperfection I achieved and call it a day.

Heather's pattern calls for 2 fat quarters but after pre-washing my fabrics they were slightly smaller than 18" on one side so I used 17" squares to start with. I don't think anyone is going to be measuring my napkins for size standards, so I'm perfectly fine with the end result, which is a little over 16" square.

Happy Easter to you all! Hope you are having a lovely low-key (or high-amp if you prefer) kind of day.

Kate