Napkins

I suggested in my last post that I might be a wee bit overwhelmed by this wedding process. And I'll be the first to admit that it's my own darn fault. As you may have figured by now, I'm a firm believer in the value of all things handmade. I could expound on that ideology for many paragraphs. But I'll assume that you're on the same page, at least in part, and skip that monologue. For now :)

Which leads me to the smallest, yet most time consuming detail of my wedding plans. The napkins. Even as I write this I'm rolling my eyes over the energy that I'm putting into this minor detail. But stay with me, I'm going to attempt to convince both of us!

It all started here, with these two pictures.


www.purlbee.com

Jen, over at the Purlbee, made cloth napkins for her wedding and later turned them into a quilt. She works at a fabric store, so it was a personal detail. The colors totally brighten up the tables, and a bunch of her guests took them home as favors. Awesome. And have you ever taken the time to notice the average restaurant cloth napkins? There's not a natural fiber to be found in them! They're kind of gritty, kind of sticky smooth, not tremendously inspiring. Real cloth napkins are a simple but sweet luxury. So yes, I've decided to make cloth napkins.



I didn't actually consider how much time this was going to take before I ordered a giant pile of fabrics, but I'm still excited. Every day I find myself flipping through the colorful stack that's growing on my desk, imagining how pretty they'll look at our reception. *Happy sigh.*



Most of what's come in so far is normal (yet fantastic) fabric. But that floral blast-from-the-past on top is a vintage sheet. Half the napkins will be from vintage sheets when all is said and done. They're totally going to rock our modern yet playful fall vibe. Awesome.



Maybe there's a wedding quilt in our future. I do hope guests take some home, lest we end up buried in 100+ cloth napkins. (We're also nixing favors, and this idea brings some rest to the glossy-wedding-magazine-intoxicated part of my brain that worries about that.) But I'm also hoping we can use these as our regular napkins till we get old and grey together. Along those lines, I hope we never buy paper napkins again. And I'm hoping friends and family recognize them when we pull them out years from now and smile, remembering the happiness of that day.

Right, back to the sewing machine.