Monday, January 11, 2016

Halloween Hooked on Napkins

Hooked on napkins is the second project in my learn to sew book, 1, 2, 3 Sew.  Initially I wasn't excited about this project (we don't need hanging napkins!), but once I decided to turn these early projects into Halloween decorations for Lucky's second birthday party I knew I could have fun practicing mitered corners with vibrant Halloween fabric.


I cut three 12"x12" squares of fabric.  The measuring and cutting is starting to go a bit faster.  I'm getting a little more confident.  It helped that once I had cut my first piece I could use it as a template to help line things up for the next two pieces.


Unfortunately I ran out of black thread when I was creating the ruffled streamers for the party.  I still need to go pick up some more black thread (maybe I should always have some backup spools on hand...) but I do have enough to start the mitered corners on three napkins even if I can't do the hemming quite yet.  I think I can get waway with white thread to hem all three fabrics, so maybe I'll just the black for the corners and the switch back to white.


I got some air soluble markers to mark where I needed to stitch the angle.  It took a week for the marks to dissappear but they did eventually go away without any washing.



For the loops, I have some orange 1/8" ribbon (Offray brand).  I cut three 5" pieces.  With my first attempt to sew on the ribbon I did it backwards. Thank goodness I had a seam ripper on hand and checked before clipping the corner.


The corners aren't perfect, but I"m really pleased with this first result.  Now onto the second napkins.  This is getting easier and easier.  I'm not sure my placement of the mitered corner is exact, but these are looking pretty darn good if I do say so myself.


For the hemming.  In the first (purple) napkin, I stitched 1/2 inch away from the hem with the wrong side up.  This left a gap between the edge of the hem and where my stitches were, so for subsequent napkins I stitched about 5/8" in.  Stitch close to the very edge of the fabric was very easy, although I did start stitch RS up on one napkin and then had to rip out the stitches.  It looked strange seeing the top side of a stitch for the outer border and the bottom side of the stitch on the inner border.


 Looking closely at the stitches, I'm realizing that maybe I should be stitching with the RS up because that is where the stitch "looks" better.  However, this blog post and this other blog post show people sewing with the WS up (so you can see the fold), so maybe I'm doing things right.  It is possible my tension is too low, but we'll see more about that once I use a different thread and bobbin sometime.


Over all, this was a simple project whose only real purpose was to give me a new skill.  These hooked on napkins are cute, but will add very little to the Halloween party decor I'm trying to create.



Project #2 is complete!  The next project is a table runner and THAT will be a central part of my decor.  Mitered corners and pockets, here I come!



Project started 9.14.2015