Made by hand: napkins

Thank you for your patience as I get back to life in the blog-o-sphere post-wedding! Everything was grand and we had the lovliest time. Here is one of my favorite shots by our incredibly talented photographer Kelly Lorenz:



Now that I am back at work, its on to the very exciting world of making books, crafts, and re-use...

I thought I'd start by posting about a few of the handmade projects we worked on for our wedding. We wanted to be as environmentally responsible as possible, do a lot of reusing, and keep throw-away stuff to a minimum... so we decided to hand sew napkins for the table settings, and then make an extra set to give away to guests as a gift. That way we wouldn't be throwing away a lot of paper napkins, and people would have a nice memento from the day (that in turn would encourage everyone to choose cloth over paper).

At first I thought I'd recycle fabric from thrift stores, but couldn't find enough of any one fabric for the job, or a mix of patterns that went well together. So instead I did some searching around online and ended up falling in LOVE with Amy Butler fabric. Her color palettes vintage inspired patterns are so so lovely. I ended up buying a yard of about 30 different designs (though I wanted a whole apartment full).



I estimated about 6 napkins per yard for a 13 x 16" size when hemmed. Finished and folded the napkins looked like this:



How did I have time to do all that sewing before the wedding you ask? I didn't! My mom pitched in and did the bulk of it, thank goodness. She is a much better and faster seamstress than I will ever be.

Once they were done I assembled my lady friends and we put them all together, tied with a bit of ribbon.



It was fun to see them all laid out- our color palette for the wedding was shades of yellow and blue and green...



Most of them went into a basket for the gift table.



And the rest went on the dinner tables (the runners were sewn by hand too, with fabric from Ikea).





They were a big hit; the basket was emptied and most of the table napkins went home with folks too! But we do have a nice set left to use and remember the day by.