diy mitered cloth napking tutorial

so i love greg to death, he's my fav. but, anytime there's food involved, you can tell where he's been. in the kitchen making a sandwich,  at the coffee table eating the sandwich, or just packing his lunch. there are crumbs/shredded cheese/sriracha sauce EVERYWHERE. and bless his heart, he knows he makes a mess, so he takes a handful of paper towels/napkins with him. just to wipe his face.  so when i stumbled upon this tutorial from Sewbon, i knew what to do with some leftover NY Giants fabric.

step 1: ignore my super old and dirty ironing board cover.

step 2: cut your fabric to size+2.25" and fold/press 1/2" from the edge.

traditional napkins are somewhere between 16"x16" to 22"x22"; what ever size you choose, just add 2.25" to that measurement. to maximize my left over fabric, i cut it to 11.75" x  16.25", which gives me a 9.5" x 14" finished napkin. then flip it wrong side up and fold it over 1/2" and use lots and lots and lots of steam. you want a nice, crisp edge.

step 3: make the adjacent edges touch, with right sides in:

flip the fabric right side up, and fold the top edge down and over so it meets the side edge.

make sure its evenly folded by pulling the unfinished corner tight and lining up the cut edges. pin through all layers to keep everything together.

step 4: stitch your miter.

you want your stitches to be at a 45* angle, from where the raw edge of your 1/2" fold meets the rest-of-the-napkin fold {at the arrow}, to the outer edge.

the easiest way to do this is by lining up the fold horizontally/perpendicular/at a 90* angle to the needle. then you just stitch to the edge. make sure you back stitch at the beginning and end.

then snip off the end and extra thread, and stitch the other 3 corners.

step 4: turn 'em right side out and press

turn your corners right side out, use a chopstick {or very carefully the tip of your scissors} to make the corner pointy. if your 45* angle was spot on, then you should automatically have another 5/8" of fabric turned under. tada! if not, no big deal, your corners might be a little wonky, but it will still get the stickies off your face. press the magic 5/8" so there's a nice crisp edge.

step 5: top stitch around the edge

and your done!