Who like me cannot bear waste, cannot watch as something is tossed aside after a short use and just know they must rescue the ‘waste’ and with a bit of thinking outside the box just know they need to create something with it? This happened to me in September!
Having been invited to a wedding of a dear niece and great intentions of making a dress to wear, which fell by the wayside with lack of time. The dress was bought to wear, however not losing sight of wanting to make something I made a tie for the man of the house to wear to compliment my dress. This is not the ‘waste’ I’ve mentioned above!
The wedding was beautiful and in a lovely village church where the WI surprised the bride as she walked outside with the bells ringing, to find them all stood as a guard of honour holding teapots and sunflowers. How lovely it all looked, with the sun shining brightly after weeks of horrendous downpours.
The reception was in the village hall, all decorated in the chosen colours of the wedding and all tables laid up to the bride and groom specifications. Each place setting had a napkin, rust in colour and made from muslin, how unusual the muslin and what an ‘in’ colour to have. It wasn’t until after the whole procedure of speeches, food and drinking that I suddenly realised that all these napkins were just dumped on all the tables, and it wouldn’t be long before the waiting staff would be around and toss them all in a bin bag along with all other rubbish. As the time went on the napkins were beginning to bug me in thinking of their plight, this made me collect up the 8 from the table I was sat. What can I do with 8, not a lot so I hop onto a table next to me, not knowing any of the seated guests but bee line for one guest and ask her if she would be my partner in crime and collect up their napkins for me. I explained I couldn’t stand the thought of them being thrown away and that I would think of a plan for them later. She did as I asked but still only had 14, I think I needed more, I think I need them all!! With another guest on board between us we furtively squirreled away 45 napkins into the bag I had under my table but leaving enough on the main table for the wedding party not to notice.
Washed 5 times to remove grease stains and sewn together into two sets of 20 with raggedy seams they have sat and waited until I decide what to do with them also needing to find time to work on them once I hatched the plan. Due to being muslin they are thin and loosely woven, and I didn’t want to interface them, so making them into a quilt wasn’t quite right. I toyed with buying a quilt and making a cover with the napkins, but this wasn’t working for me either. I needed to think of something that would get used and not thrown into the back of a cupboard after rescuing and working with them for them never seeing the light of day again.
Eventually after weeks of looking at them and lack of time to work on them I hit on the idea to do something with them for their campervan and at least then I know they will be put to good use. I purchased two fleece blankets, brilliant plan as they will already be hemmed and stitched, the correct size and purchased two in the perfect colours. I was able to stitch the napkin sheet to the fleece around the edges and then I tied all corner sections to the fleece to hold the whole thing in place. I ended up with a his and hers fleece for cold evenings in the camper and hopefully they will get used on many an occasion. Having given the items to my niece she was thrilled and did laugh and stated only me would think to squirrel away the napkins and make something with them. She is also adamant the dog will not be getting on them when off on their jaunts in the van!
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