A Beautiful Brunch With Napkin Tutorial

We recently had some houseguests over the Labor Day holiday. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I am not at my best in the wee hours of the morning.

To fake chipper cheerfulness, I lay out and prepare as much as I can the night before. I LOVE donuts. Don’t you?

See the cake plate the donuts are on? It used to be blue and was rarely used. With a bit of gold and then silver Rub and Buff it has been transformed and hopefully will see more use. I used a paper doily to keep the food from sitting directly on the painted surface for safety. 

The majority of the menu was based on what came in our organic food basket this week. The strawberries have been incredibly good this year.

I set the table using a lovely and heavy antique linen panel as a tablecloth. The cloth was topped by a piece of antique crochet, wicker chargers and my Polish pottery purchased while living in Europe.

Once all of the crucial elements were in place there was only a very small space left for a centerpiece. Enter in my onetime shelf found at Goodwill. 

How do you like my napkins? I made these rustic lovelies specifically for this tablescape.

Yes, I STILL had ticking left over, even after I made an apron and covered two wingchairs.

The leftover fabric had a few holes near the edges and some remaining rust spots. Perfect for napkins that will never fear a dinner of spaghetti or ribs.

I followed StoneGable’s beautiful mitered napkin tutorial. Yvonne’s instructions were so clear and easy. Of course I always like to put my own spin on projects.  Yvonne’s lovely napkins featured a finished 1/4” seam. I wanted a wider seam of 1/2”.

I needed a wider finished seam so that I could add a decorative stitch. Another twist on this project was that each napkin had a different stitch. Kind of a nod to the wine charms of old. Our family often uses our cloth napkins more than once. (Ditto for bath towels~ oh the horror!) Each family member picked out which stitch they wanted and were so happy to have “their own” napkin. 

You can also see that I used the ticking fabric wrong side out. I liked the softer palette that it provided. Here is a close up of a few of the napkins.  The row of x’s (or kisses) belongs to Mr. Decor. :)

Napkin Reality Check: Each napkin took about 30 minutes to make. While the ironing, cutting and pinning perhaps only took 10 minutes, the decorative stitching ate up the majority of the time. It is very, very slow to sew compared to just a regular straight stitch.

 

I created a total of 8 napkins. Since I only needed 6 for this table setting I lined a silver tray with one as shown in the photo above and also wrapped a loaf of homemade raisin bread to bring the ticking fabric onto to the buffet. Repetition is always a good thing in design.

With the addition of a yummy egg casserole, a bit of bacon, hot tea and juice, breakfast was a beautiful success that was most appreciated by my guests.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. What is yours?

Laura

Linking to:

A Stroll Thru Life

Between Naps On The Porch