Weddingbee Blog

I could end this post by simply saying: don’t do it. Save yourself (and your loved ones) the time and sanity right now and walk away. But, I clearly didn’t listen to the wisdom and warnings of other brides before me, either. So if you are relentless about making your own napkins, here’s some tips and advice I learned in the process.

1. Find a good tutorial. This was one of my biggest mistakes. I just started sewing, thinking I would magically figure it out. Not so much. I suggest these tutorials: here or here.

2. If you don’t know how to sew or don’t want to sew all your napkins, invest in pinking shears. They allow you to cut your fabric without it fraying all over the place, and it makes a cute zig-zag border:

Photo by Bradford & Mia Sheperd / Via A Backyard Wedding

3. Always wash your fabric (by itself) and dry it before trying to cut it. If you wait until after you cut, you’ll end up with frayed edges.

4. Iron your fabric to get a smooth surface for cutting nice, straight lines. This will take a long time. Make it seem less like torture by watching your favorite TV shows while ironing.

Image Credit: M Kaye Ironing (Ironing is never this fun to me.)

5. Cut the fabric square and straight as best you can the first time. I can’t cut anything straight to save my life, so this resulted in a lot of excess fabric to cut off on my napkins.

6. Always remember to fully dry your fabric before folding it or storing it for any period of time. If you don’t, you might end up with mold or mildew on your napkins, which no one wants.

7. Buy extra thread before you start sewing. There were several times I set aside time to work on my napkins but couldn’t because I ran out of thread. Then I would go to three or four stores trying to find the damn stuff. It was frustrating and a waste of time. Just buy it early. Trust me.

8. Come up with a system that works for you. In the beginning, I did all my napkins in groups of seven, but as I continued I worked on 14 in the same amount of time. I also always did one portion at a time. For instance, I would pin all 14 napkins one day and then sew them the next day. Finishing each little section made me feel very accomplished.

9. Don’t indulge in popcorn or other greasy snacks around your unfinished napkins. It could leave stains. Not that I know anything about that or anything…

10. Involve others if they offer to help. Mr. Pony saw how stressed out these napkins made me and offered to cut all my excess fabric (see #5) to ease my stress a little.

11. Your machine will at some point stop acting like its normal self and start hating you. When this happens, let someone else look at it (especially if that person has an engineering background—thanks, Mr. Pony!).

12. Celebrate your accomplishments! For every 10% of napkins I completed, I had a mini-celebration. It seems silly, but it really motivated me to see how far I had come.

Image via Jazz Man Social Club

13. Don’t be afraid to take breaks from the work. I’m not just referring to a quick 15-minute break; I mean days or weeks. When my machine decided to eat anything I put toward the needle, I simply put away my machine and focused my energy elsewhere for a while. Just don’t forget about the napkins for good.

14. Remember: you are the one who knows how much time you have to devote to your wedding projects. If you are three months out and have a 300-person guest list, this may not be your project. I started on our napkins a little less than a year from the wedding and got them done in about three months. I gave myself plenty of time to complete this project so I wouldn’t feel stressed about getting them done.

15. Don’t listen to the DIY haters (AKA my mom) who don’t understand why you are putting so much time, effort, and money into a simple napkin. If it is important to you, do it, and enjoy your success when you get them done.

That is all, DIY friends and lovers.

Any other tips you would add for those considering making their own napkins?