You’ve maybe gathered that we really like these bracelets, seeing how we have their button on our sidebar and how they keep popping up on our wrists in different pictures    MudLOVE is just a really neat shop, and we are so blessed to only live a short distance from them.  We pretty much stop in every other week…if not every week…getting bracelets for ourselves, for our friends who have given us ‘orders’, or for gifts

For those who don’t know already what MudLove is about, they donate 20% of all their sales to help provide clean water in Africa.  You can click :here: to read a little more about it

Some of you may have heard already, that on March 25th,  ICDI’s main office in Bangui was looted during the Seleka rebel takeover of the Central African Republic.  ICDI is the organization MudLove supports and they’re putting out a campaign to help them.  You can click on the picture below to see how you can help, too, if you like

On Easter while we were doing our photo shoot, we decided to do some ‘MudLove’ pictures and wear every single Mudlove band we owned

 Spelling out MudLove on the grass

 Help some people pump some [clean] water…

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Luke 11:9-10

[this post was originally posted for Feelin' Feminine's   A Chest of Hope column.]

A couple of years ago, I was horrified that the price of the cheap paper napkins at the store had gone from $1 to almost $2!  Maybe not such a big deal, but considering that we went through 500-paper-napkin-package in 2 weeks, that would be approximately $100 a year just in napkins!

So partly for fun, and partly to save money, we had a napkin making party!  We pulled out our scrap material stash (which was, and still is, very large!) and everyone could pick whatever print or fabric they wanted and cut them out.  Some of the fabrics we liked weren’t big enough for a regular sized cloth napkin, so not only do we have quite the assortment of colors, but also of  sizes!  I think we sewed around 60 napkins that day, and they are still being put to good use.  We’ve been using cloth napkins for so long, that when we go back to a regular paper one, it seems so small…and so…puny!

They are very easy to manage, as you can just drop them into the laundry with your other dishcloths and towels, and they take up hardly any room at all in the washer.  Our laundry room happens to be beside the kitchen, so after a meal we gather up the napkins and drop them into a small plastic basket on the washing machine just for that purpose.  Then when we do laundry, we  dump the basket of napkins into the wash.  The hardest part of taking care of them is when you have a lot of them to fold at once, but even that is not so bad!

To begin with, choose fabrics that you would be willing to wipe your face with!  We have some favorite napkins and not-so-favorite ones for the simple reason that we did not quite think that through!

The ‘ideal’ size is 16 inches by 16 inches.  But you may make them slightly smaller, or larger, if you like.

Fold and press the edges over 1/4 of an inch, and then press them over again, so that the raw edge is inside.

Then, to make the corners, open up the corners of the hem you just pressed.

See the little square from your pressing in the picture above? Make your fold all the way to the top point of that square, or to the line shown.

Then fold the hem back over to the press marks you made before. Press with an iron to keep into place, or if you are brave, get each corner ready as you are sewing towards it. Stitch all the way around the napkin, as close to the edge as you can, like the black marks below.

Rolled Hem (Serger)

This is the faster way to do it, that is, once you figure out how to set up the serger for it!  This is especially faster if you are doing several napkins. I would encourage you to consult the manual that came with your serger as it will have all the specifics.  It really isn’t that scary–it just takes a few minutes of thought to figure out how to do it!

-After you’ve cut out your napkins, move the blade out of the way.  Some need unscrewed, but a lot of the newer sergers can be easily moved.

-Remove the stitch finger

-Thread the machine. You only thread the right needle for a rolled hem, so you can take out the left needle.

-Set your tensions: Right needle at 5, upper looper at 2, and lower looper at 1.  Sometimes there is a knob on the side of the machine that has an “R” on it for “rolled hem”.  If there is, turn that dial also (to “R”).

-Test on a scrap of fabric-it should leave a nice edge that is small and tight together (see one of the pictures)

-Begin sewing on your napkins.  When you get to a corner, slow down and serge just off of  the edge as shown below.

Lift the presser foot, carefully turn the fabric so that the needle is right beside the previously made hem, put the presser foot back down, and begin sewing again.

When you come to the place where you started, stitch over the beginning a little, and then sew off of the fabric, leaving a tail.  You don’t need the tail, but it helps you be able to trim it nicely and easier.

Add a dab of Fray Check to where you trimmed the tail to keep the thread from unravelling.

Enjoy your napkins!  They are so much fun!  As you can see in the top photo, we have some pretty wild ones (my brothers love their tractor napkins)!

While strolling through our many drafts (why don’t we just post those things?!!), we came across this post Anna wrote about a year ago on Charissa’s birthday.  It was just too cute not to post

Today is Charissa’s birthday, and Noah wanted to sew her a napkin…and ‘sew’ he did

He was SsoO cute cutting out the fabric, and he told me ” I like sewing!”

Ironing…

Cute 7 year old smile!

I thought this was cute…a little boy in front of a sewing machine!

The finished production  Didn’t he do a great job?

I like sewing!!

-Noah

 

 

♥ A picture I thought was really cute!! ♥

A few weeks before Easter,  Susannah said, “We need to make new matching outfits, all of our other ones don’t fit everybody.”  I said, “What?!  We don’t have time to make new outfits!”

And that was the end of that.  I thought.

Then two weeks before Easter, Susannah had a dream that we all had these matching blue and green jumpers with brown ribbon around the waist and brown ruffles at the bottom.  Later that day Susannah, Leah and I were shopping at JoAnn fabrics, and Susannah and Leah found that same material Susannah dreamed about,  and they both liked it, convinced me that I liked it too, and needless to say we came home with a couple bolts of the material   Happily,  all of us girls can sew now, so we each made our own outfit, which made getting them all done in two weeks time a breeze…well, almost!

We all love how they all coordinate and match, but each of ours is just a tad different, whether it’s in the skirts, tucks, ruffles or ribbons

You most probably remember the  picture we posted about a week ago where we look like we’re about to kill each other   Here’s the rest of them for you to enjoy   Mommy was our wonderful photographer again, so that all of us girls could be in the picture at the same time.   Thankfully it stopped raining and the sun even peeked out a little for an hour or two while we were taking pictures.

This one is hilarious because we were all smiling nicely for the camera (for once) and Charissa suddenly says, “Look! Green grass!” right as Mommy took this picture.

Mommy got quite a few pictures of us  ‘in between the official pictures’

 I forget who had the idea to get our instruments, but it made for some fun pictures.  We were all playing around right here before Mommy was going to take the ‘official’ picture.

 The ‘official’ picture

 Susannah playing around with her cello

 And we had to do a funny picture with our instruments, too…of course!

How much we love our instruments…

 You are going to think we are quite the violent group…we just can’t resist I’m-gonna-beat-you-up pictures!

 {laughing about how ridiculous we’re acting}

 Pretending to be scared of something Susannah is pointing at…

 …and so terrified we fell the opposite way

 We had a hard time looking horrified for the first picture

 More fun

 Every time we put the person back down on the ground, we tried teasing them by saying, ‘Put the head down first!’

They dropped me…

…and laughed about it

 Susannah giving us encouragement

 I think Cassia died…and we’re laughing about that, too.

 I just love this picture!

 and this one!

 We were getting goofy [I know, you never could have guessed such a thing!], and started singing the ‘Christmas Can Can’ by Straight No Chaser.  We’re all singing, “…look here comes Santa Claus, Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa!”   And Anna is hollering, “Guys! Guys!”   This is Easter, not Christmas…but oh well!

   Jumping pictures are so much fun to do…and to see afterwards

Susannah’s face in this one is so funny–”Do I have to jump again?!”

 This was an accident because in the picture Mommy took before this one, she said, “Ready, Simon says…don’t go!” and we all jumped.  So this time Susannah was all prepared not to ‘go’

 Monkeys in the tree…

And lastly…a video Mommy snuck on us.  I love how Cassia stows away her bow, Steven Sharp Nelson style

Happy, happy [belated] Easter everyone