How to Make Napkins with Mitered Corners

Here at Spoonflower, we value responsibly-made products as much as you do. In order to live that “reduce, reuse, recycle” life, we try to cut down on waste and limit what goes into our landfills. If you’re looking for more ways to embrace this type of lifestyle, why not try your hand at making reusable cloth dinner napkins? We’ll take you through the process, from placing your order to making sure those corners are nice and mitered. Let’s get started!

Spoonflower’s Fill-A-Yard^TM offers the ability to print more than one design in a single yard, giving designers and makers more flexibility with the fabric they order. This groundbreaking technology also allows users to select from multiple Fill-A-Project^TM templates such as cheater quilts, scarves and more. By using the “Dinner Napkins” template, you can curate your own set of twelve 16″x16″ napkins customized with the designs of your choosing.

Start creating your Fill-A-Project^TM Napkin Set by first logging into your Spoonflower account to create a design collection of your choosing or shop from curated themes.

Once you’ve decided on your own Collection, click the Start Designing button above.

Next, choose the “2 yards (up to 12 designs)” template. Fill-A-Project^TM dinner napkins are available on Spoonflower’s Organic Cotton Sateen, which makes for soft and elegant napkins. This fabric also has a soft sheen, perfect for adding that polished touch to your table setting!

Once you’ve selected the correct template, choose the fabric from the dropdown and click “Design Your Project.”

Now you’re ready to have some fun! The gray boxes on the left represent your napkin set (we call this your design canvas), and the small thumbnails on the right are the designs from the collection you’ve chosen. We’re mixing and matching three different coordinating design patterns for our napkin set. You can choose anything your heart desires for your napkin set, even up to 12 different designs (one for each napkin) if you’d like!

From the design thumbnails on the right,  identify the specific designs you want printed. Instructions are simple:

We’re all done and ready to add this napkin set to the cart!

It may take a few seconds of processing time, but don’t refresh your page. You’ll get a confirmation like the one above once your Fill-A-Project^TM Napkin Set has been added to your cart. That’s it!

Now let’s move on to sewing your napkins with perfect mitered corners!

Mitered corner napkins are what you commonly think of when you imagine a cloth napkin. The word “miter” is actually a carpentry term, and refers to the joining of two pieces of wood to create a 90-degree angle. In sewing terms, the result is a cloth napkin with sharp, slim corners. This took us about 10 minutes for one napkin using this style.

If you’ve used Spoonflower’s Fill-A-Yard® as your fabric, cut out the individual pieces from the two yards of fabric.

Once your fabric is cut down and before you begin to sew, you will fold and iron your edges. Begin by folding over an edge about half an inch and iron down the entire edge of one side. Be sure to press firmly with the iron, as this will create a guideline for your mitered corner without having to draw a line with your pen.  For our napkin, we will fold over the fabric edge by half an inch and iron the entire edge, and then fold a second time (half an inch) and iron again. This will create a clean edge on the wrong side of your napkin. Repeat this step for all four sides.

The fold lines should be visible when opening up your fabric, and you will notice that a square has been created, with the outer seam bordering it on two sides. The corner of the square closest to the center of your napkin will actually become the outer corner of your finished napkin.

Using a clear ruler, mark your corner to be trimmed, by creating a diagonal line that aligns with the two opposite points of your inner square as shown above. Using the line you just drew as a guide, snip off the corner of your fabric.

Fold your fabric in on itself at the corner you just snipped, right sides facing. Pin or clip the fabric together to hold it steady.

Sew your mitered corner stitch into each corner. Starting at either edge,  sew from the diagonal fold toward the edge of your fabric, and half inch from the fabric toward the fold. We highlighted our fold line and stitch lines with the erasable marker.

Snip the “bulk” out of your corner.

Using a chop stick or blunt end of a stick, turn the mitered corner out.

Fold in the raw edge and press with your iron.

Edge stitch your hem with a medium length straight stitch, getting as close to the inner edge of that hem as you can.

You’re done! Marvel at how neat and professional looking your napkin is!

Excited to create your own napkins? Get started today with this simple tutorial. Want to know what else you can make with Spoonflower’s Fill-A-Yard® tool? Try out this 6″ square baby cheater quilt, this 9″ square cheater quilt, this stretchy infinity scarf and browse our Fill-A-Yard® curated collections to come up with your own ideas!

Whatever you make, be sure to share it with your world and ours by tagging #Spoonflower on your social channels. We can’t wait to see your version of creativity brought to life!