Feelin’ Scrappy: How to turn fabric scraps into cloth napkins*

These easy, DIY scrap fabric cloth napkins are a great way to reduce the amount of paper your family uses and help you live a little more frugally!

Since I began sewing things to sell two months ago, I have been quickly accumulating a pile of fabric scraps. I have been pondering ways I could use them; the challenge has been that many of the pieces are too small to use for cloth baby wipes but they are too big to just throw away. I knew I needed to come up with an idea sooner rather than later because I was outgrowing my storage box and space is a premium in our little old house these days. This morning I finally had my “Ah ha!” moment. I could use them for cloth napkins!

 I’m not referring to the normal, large size cloth napkins you see in restaurants or at fancy dinners. In our house, those are too big for our purpose so we don’t use them every day. The last few years my husband and I use a small piece of paper towel, it may not look pretty but it works and the size is perfect for most meals. 


Growing up we used store bought paper napkins and threw them out at every meal so our use of a small piece of paper towel is an improvement, but I still wanted to figure out a way to alleviate even that paper usage and save us money at the store. We use cloth diapers and we use small baby size wash rags to wipe our little nugget down after she eats, so why shouldn’t we use cloth for our napkins at daily meals?

Supplies: 

pile of cotton, flannel or knit fabric scraps

Dish towels, dish rags, hand towels, or anything terry cloth material in decent shape

Sewing machine (serger or standard machine with a zigzag stitch)

Thread

*These require only very basic sewing skills so even a beginner can make them!

I pulled out my bursting box of fabric scraps, grabbed a pile that was on top and began my project. We also have an overflowing rag drawer, so I took out a few of the cloth dish rags I had thrown in there a while back that had begun to unravel after a few washings and set to work.

I took each scrap of fabric and cut it to a rectangular shape.

I then laid it on top of the dish rag and cut out a matching piece.

For our use, it does not matter if these are all different, odd sizes; if I were to make some to sell they would all be a standard size since I’m a bit of a perfectionist!

Once I had a pile completed, I serged all four edges together (you can zigzag the edges together if you don’t have a serger). The whole project took me less than half an hour and we now have a fun little stash of reusable cloth napkins in the perfect size for our family! 

And now I can fit the lid back on my box of fabric scraps!

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