When I was young in the mountains, I sewed cloth napkins on my 1946 Singer sewing machine.  I made red plaid ones for Italian meals and fun butterflies for Summer feasts.  I carefully packed them away. . .

Now that I am married and we have our own home, the napkins are being well used and I've added quite a few more to the collection.  Three years in, do cloth napkins have a practical use in the home?  You bet!  We love using cloth napkins and our guests feel extra special when they stay for meals.  They're a simple, frugal solution to multi-napkin meals (like ribs and fried chicken) and at-the-table spills.  We're not tired of folding them and when we ate meals away from home, I packed them in lunches.  They're also a great way to entertain babies honing their fine motor skills.

How do you get started?  Here's a few tips....

This post is part of our Drop the Disposables lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Drop the disposables: Cloth napkins Drop the disposables: Paper towel replacements Drop the disposables: Sanitary pads Drop the disposables: Diapers Drop the disposables: Grocery bags

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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