christmasnapkinrings.pdf  

Go ahead and say it – I’m a crazy woman.  I adore making holiday napkin rings as you’ve seen from the variety I have shown you over the years.  Well, this is just an opportunity for me to show you what I’m working on for this year’s table.  It’s a collection of four different designs instead of making all the same ones for each guest. 

Materials List:

• Felt colors of your choice
• Hand sewing needle
• Colorful embroidery floss
• Embellishments like beads, sequins, etc.
• Templates
• Scissors
• Pins

Instructions:
1. I have found that to make the best holiday napkin rings, I need a template. There are templates all around your home if you know what to look for.  A Christmas ornament would be a great template if you just draw it onto card stock or a manila folder to keep it sturdy.  Then, use it to trace onto your felt.  This way you can use it over and over again to make enough napkin rings for your entire family. 

Pictures in children’s books can be great templates, or how about designs from last year’s holiday cards?

I usually keep the size within about 4 to 41/2” square.  So find your template first.

2. This is my variety of shapes for this year.  The ornament was simply made by tracing around the bottom of a glass.  The gingerbread boy was made by tracing around a cookie!  The mitten is a shrunk down version of a real mitten and the Christmas tree was a copy of a large tree shaped holiday gift tag! 

3. You will need to cut a front and a back of each shape, along with the embellishments for the front of each one.  For instance, I would cut two gold ornaments, 2 white tops and then just one set of stripes for the front of the napkin ring.

4. Determine if you are going to stitch your ornamentation to the front face of your napkin ring or if you plan on simply gluing the pieces in place.  If you are stitching, stitch the ornamentation on the front face now, like I did with the beading.  If you are gluing, go on to the next step first and then glue on the pieces.

5. Stitch the main body pieces together using a hand stitch that you like.  You can do an easy running stitch or try a blanket stitch.  You also need to decide if the thread will match the body or accent the color of the body.  For instance, I would use a gold thread on my ornament because I want to stripes to stand out more than the stitching around the ornament.  Don’t close the ornament completely until you fill it with cut up scraps of felt.  I like my napkin rings to have a little puffiness to them and a few of the felt scraps cut up fill them in nicely.  Once they are filled up, stitch the body closed.

6. The last step is to create the actual napkin “ring” which holds the napkin.  To do this, cut two strips of coordinating felt ¾” wide by 6 1/2” to 7” long depending on how thick your napkins are.  Pin them together and either use a running stitch or a blanket stitch to attach them together.  Roll the ring into a circle, overlapping about ½” at the ends, and stitch the napkin ring to the middle on the back of your design.

Now that you understand the process, you can be just as goofy as I am and create napkin rings for every holiday, every season, birthdays, celebrations…and the list goes on!

Shari

 
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