When I saw Ayumi’s beautiful kitchen towels, I agonized for weeks. I knew I would never be able to actually use them in my kitchen, because all my tea towels end up stained and completely ruined. So I ummed and ahhed for a while and then, late one night, it came to me. Picnic napkins!!
I love a good picnic (and a midnight feast, for that matter). Picnics let me imagine I’m one of the Mitford sisters, trundling off for a delightful afternoon of raspberries and kippers in the glorious, verdant English countryside, to be followed by a bracing dip in the sea, of course. I think all that Enid Blyton and co in my formative years might be responsible.
I digress. I love a good picnic, so I decided to make a few simple changes and make picnic napkins instead.
My napkins are made from a soft, white linen/cotton blend. I chose linen/cotton blend rather than pure linen because I was worried that the watery, flowing softness of pure linen would make it too difficult for me to applique the fiddly little letters. (Don't you find light linen a bit tricky to sew with? So very flowy and mercurial in the sewing machine.)
I then fussed for weeks (yes, actually weeks) over my choice of scraps for the applique letters. I learned I struggle with "random". I constantly found myself pulled towards "matchy-matchy". "Ooh, this floral matches this stripe so... no, wait, I'm trying to be random." In the end, I compromised. I used the orange, aqua and green floral as my central fabric and then matched the other fabrics to it. But I then added a solid pink, a pink 30s repro and a yellow floral, which didn't really match, but in the end I just liked how they looked. Plus, the picnic napkins needed pink. (Doesn't everything need pink?)
I chose an orange on white print for the binding. I used straight cut binding (not bias binding) and I machine stitched the binding on. This was a new technique for me. I have previously always hand-stitched binding on, so I had to learn use the narrow and wider sides of my handmade binding, to make sure that my machine stitches would catch the back of the binding. Success!
Upon reflection, I think I should have used less orange and more pink (but that's probably because I LOVE pink and I am, at best, lukewarm towards orange).
I will see you in Week 3 of the Patchwork Please Zakka Along. I am working hard to keep up. I did my Week 1 bell pepper coaster ages ago, which is just as well, because I started back at work last week. Yes, after 9 wonderful months as a stay-at-home-mum with my beloved Snuffle-Bunny (so called because Bunny has a cold at the moment) I started back at work part-time last week. It's been hectic and I miss my long, peaceful, sunshiney days at home with my baby boy, but needs must as they say.
Happy sewing!
Amber x
