Cloth napkins… who knew that it would make dinner time just a little more fun? The goal in the beginning was to eliminate or reduce the waste of paper napkins. Up until recently, our household would go through a large package of paper napkins a month. I tried to purchase napkins from recycled paper, but the plastic wrapping that they were packaged in always bothered me. It is funny how the thought of fabric napkins never crossed my mind as an alternative until I began this journey a couple of months ago to our earthier minded home.
Being an artistic sort and wanting to be able to pick the fabric myself, I chose to make my own napkins. There are plenty of places to purchase cloth napkins if sitting at the sewing machine doesn’t excite you. If you like fun, there are fun ones. As usual, you can find a great selection of fabric napkins from sellers on Etsy. Since I have kids, boring, uni-colored napkins will not do. I set out to make an assortment of fun fabric napkins to suit each person in our family—from Frozen to Star Wars themed, and some colorful patterned ones as well.
I was expecting my family to miss their paper napkins, but to my surprise, they really liked the fabric ones. It has given another element to enjoy about dinner time, and my daughter especially likes to pick out napkins for each of us since she is really observant at knowing each of our likes and dislikes.
If you sew, you can make these at a very low cost. I purchased fabric remnants at half the typical price and found some great fabrics, but you can re-purpose old material if you want to keep it simple and greatly lessen the environmental impact of your cloth napkins. My son’s Star Wars napkins were made from a bed sheet of his that finally ripped enough times I could not repair it. He was happy to be able to keep his favorite sheets in one form or another.
If you are trying to keep your impact on the earth low, this is a simple way to lessen it a little. No trees had to be injured. You still need to launder your cloth napkins–which does take another toll on the environment–however, we simply throw them in with the rest of our laundry, and it doesn’t change the load size we select on the washer dial. We have happily made this step to use cloth napkins in our earthier-minded home. Will you join us?
A Journey to an Earthier-Minded Home 