Sewing Cloth Napkins

I had a vision, while in the middle of the grocery store at the beginning of last week, to give our moms a giant kitchen herb and make them some cloth napkins for Mother's Day. I'd been wanting to try to make my own for a while because some of the fabric I'd seen was perfect and so fun!

First I took an old and stained existing cloth napkin and cut it to a 14 x 14 inch square so that I'd have a template to cut the rest of the fabric to. I knew I wanted my napkins to be around a 12 inch square but I think in the end they ended up being closer 13 inches since I didn't need a two inch seem. Live and learn.

I researched a few different online tutorials and the hint that I found the most helpful hint was to iron the sides of the napkins exactly how you plan to sew them. It was tedious and boring to be ironing the sides of the napkins but it was sooo helpful when it came time for sewing to already have the shade already ironed in for me. I didn't even have to use pins when sewing the seams.

Now is where I'm going to start intermingling the photos from the other napkins I made (for AJ's mom)... I realized after I gave my mom's to her on Saturday morning that I didn't get good enough close-up photos of the finished product. Here is what the underside looked like after folding over the unfinished hem and then folding it over again and stitching it up.

I tried to have each of the corners look decent (in all honesty, some look better than others, but hey, this is my first go-around at making napkins!).

On Saturday morning, after AJ and I ran the Hit the Street for Little Feet 5K, my parents and sister came back to our house for breakfast. More about the race and the rest of our Mother's Day weekend tomorrow, today we are just focusing on cloth napkins (oooh... how exciting! :)).

I decided to go with two different patterns for our moms so I wanted to make the tables look slightly different... I'll show you both! These table settings aren't fabulously inventive, or anything incredibly different from what I've done in the past... they are just to highlight the napkins and the fun fabric. Here was what I put together for my Mom. I went with a rustic theme because the pot made me think of a casual garden party:

We gave her a rosemary bush (or plant?):

Now for April's green napkin and oregano in a galvanized pot inspired table-setting... we did this on Sunday morning before they left for the hospital to visit Meredith:

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QUESTION (I'd love to hear in the comments section):

What did you do for your mom?

Did you make her anything fun or do anything special?