Christmas tree napkins

While the design for these was not my idea, these dimensions and steps were. I hope you enjoy! 

Start by picking two contrasting fabrics that look good together. I personally like the way one light and one dark work together. I have made these three times each with different fabrics. 

Because they will hopefully be used as napkins, I try and stay away from very white with little pattern - in case of food stains. The busier the better. 

I tried to do the sewing math (top line of the picture below). I believe that it takes 1.5 yards of each fabric to make a set of eight napkins. 

In sewing, always start by ironing! 

Then cut your rectangles - should measure 20 inches by 10 inches. However many of each for each fabric. I like to make sets of 8 for a nice gift.  

Then with a fabric pencil trace around a semi-circle, taking up all of the space. Once you cut out the first one you can use that as a pattern. I found this was a lot easier for me. 

Then cut it out around the semi-circle line that you drew. You don't have to cut our the baseline - you can use the bottom of the rectangle you already cut out.  

You will then have two pieces of fabric that look like this below. 

Place the two sides together with the pattern facing in and pin together so that they do not move when you sew. 

Sew together with a 1/4 inch seam. Make sure to leave ~2 inches open because you need to flip the material inside out. 

Use a pair of pinking shears to made a zig zag pattern cutting along the edges. If you don't have these, use scissors to cut little triangles out of the fabric. Make sure not to cut too close to the seam. This is especially important for the curve otherwise it will be very bunchy underneath. 

Flip the material inside out. 

Iron all around the outside so that it lays nice and flat. I will look like the photo below. Almost there!

Iron the fabric in the hole so that it forms a nice straight line. Sew it shut.  This video helped me for the technique to sew up the little hole left for turning it inside out.

Then the magic is in the ironing. They can either be folded 3 or 4 times depending on how wide/skinny you would like your tree. I have seem some where people sew lines into the fabric to make subsequent folding easier for the people you give them to, but I don't think that looks very nice and it's more work so I don't do that.