Monogrammed Dinner Napkins

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Ok people.  It's officially wedding season and that means you have a lot of gifts to start buying.  You have a couple of options.  Look at the couple's registry and buy them some lame pasta strainer that they will never remember that you bought them and will probably end up in a garage sale in five years.  Or, you could go online and try to find a personalized, one of a kind present that will end up costing you so much that you won't be able to afford to attend the wedding.  Or, you can do it the Life is Made way and make them a personalized, one of a kind present that they will cherish forever.   

I'm going to begin the wedding season with a great tutorial on making monogrammed dinner napkins, but over the next month I will be putting up a couple more tutorials for making unique wedding presents, so please stay tuned!

 

 

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Supplies:  Linen or already hemmed linen dinner napkins, embroidery floss, embroidery needle, embroidery hoop, marking pencil, GellyRoll Pen, computer and printer

1.  Cut and sew your dinner napkins out of linen.  (Or, skip this step if you have purchased already made napkins.)   I folded the edges twice and used an iron to set the hems.  Then I made two lines of stitching for my hem.

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2.  Use any word processing program on your computer to create the monogram letter or letters you are going to use.  I went online and found a font that I liked and downloaded to my computer.  Size the letters to the size you want them and print out a sheet for each napkin.

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3.  Use a Marking Pencil (this is a seamstresses pencil, but you can also use a white colored pencil or regular graphite pencil if you are using light fabric) to cover the backside of the piece of paper that your letter is on.  Go over the letter several times pressing hard so that you leave as much of the pencil on the paper as you can.  You will be using this residue to transfer to the cloth.  

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4.  Place the letter or letters on your napkin.  Use a pen (I like a ball point pen like Bic because you can press really hard with it) to go over the outlines of the letter transferring the letter to the cloth.

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6.  If you are using white on dark fabric, the transfer may come out a bit light.  I used a GellyRoll pen to go over the lines so I could see my letter more clearly.  If you are transferring using graphite on light fabric, you may not need this step, but if you do want to see your letter more clearly, you could use a ball point pen to go over the lines. 

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7.  I like to use DMC Pearl number 5 embroidery floss for embroidering most everything.   I just like the way it looks and the ease of use.  You can use any embroidery floss you like.  Start on one end of the letter and begin to make satin stitches making sure to keep your stitches going in the same direction.  When you run out of thread and need to tie off, loop your needle under a couple of stitches on the backside and then cut.  Thread a new needle and begin where you left off.   

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