Public Service Announcement

My announcement has to do with washing cloths napkins but - we'll get there in a minute.

I'm in the beginning of "Christmas at my house this year" count down and one of this weekend's projects was cloth napkins. For my birthday this year I bought the embroidery unit for my sewing machine. I say it was for my birthday but; really, I decided I wanted it and I got it. I don't have parents buying my presents anymore so I get to play the game of saying something is a birthday present for myself. I think most of us do this, or maybe I'm just crazy but- My life - my rules.

I have my great aunt's china.

It's beautiful and busy. Kind of old fashioned pink with a floral design on ivory background. Because it's busy I stay simple in my tablecloths. I have an ivory and a pale rose cloth depending on if I need 2 tables or not for larger groups. In all the years I've used these cloths I've never had cloth napkins that weren't Mom's leftovers or used seasonal paper napkins. This year I'm having family Christmas and, as I said before I now have an embroidery unit. So, I thought, wouldn't it be fun to make some napkins for Christmas.

I'm your basically cheap person. I like nice things but don't want to spend a lot of money on something that will only be used once a year so I headed to Walmart after doing some Internet searching. Walmart has cloth napkins for 2/$1.98, a wonderful price. They had a maroon that was kind of a brick toned maroon. I bought 16 of them and found a collection of small snowflakes to embroider on them. After getting them all done (ended up with 2 having snowmen on them for the kids) they needed to be soaked to get the wash-a-way stabilizer out. Here's where the public service announcement comes in.

WALMART CLOTH NAPKINS BLEED DYE - A LOT!!!

Be warned. I put 8 of them into a small tub of warm water to soak. After 10 minutes I went back to rinse, and hang them to dry and discovered the water is the color of cherry kool-aid. When I took one out and squeezed it, the water that I squeezed out was very red. I'm guessing I'll have to wash these 2-3 times to get the dye out. So far I don't notice the white thread on the snowflakes looking like it picked up any dye but, time will tell.

If all works out well, I'll have 14 snowflake napkins (5 different flake designs) and 2 snowman napkins for when there happens to be a couple little kids joining us, which won't be this year unfortunately. Once they're all washed and finished I'll post a picture.