Green Living
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Napkins/Paper towels
Anybody make their own reusable ones?
I was looking @ the ones from Etsy, and feel like I should be able to manage making them myself, my mom kind of taught me how to use a sewing machine, I just didn't like it much. But how hard can hemming the edges of a square piece of fabric be?! 
(just wait, once I try it I'll be back here betching about how hard it was!)
So if you have any tips/hints feel free to share!
Re: Napkins/Paper towels
I wrote about my tshirt non-paper towels here. No need to sew! If you want nicer looking dinner napkins, putting a stitch around the edge might be good, but for kitchen rags I love the tshirt ones!
Sewing corners is the hardest, but with practice it gets somewhat better. : /
Love the PPs info on non-paper towels, MH has a bunch of t-shirts he shrunk.
If you happen to have a serger or can borrow someone's, that's the easiest. Here's my "tutorial:"
http://thelocalcook.com/2010/04/03/super-simple-serged-reversible-napkin-placemat/
Alright don't laugh at me, what's a serger?
A serger is like a sewing machine with four needles and it cuts all at the same time. Great for making professional-looking seams and edging.
Interesting! I of course decide I need to do this when I'm about to move cross country and no longer will be able to borrow my mom or grandmother's machines!
Ha. I have one of those machines. I not only didn't know that you could use it to make napkins, I didn't even know it was a serger. I had only heard of sergers being used for quilting, and only knew tmy machine by the name "interlock". I thought it was a normal sewing machine when I inherited it. Then MIL told me it wasn't, but I could use it to make my own bathing suits. Hence, I've never even taken it out of the box.
I clearly don't spend much time on the Crafts board.
To me, $5 for 5 napkins is worth not having to deal with a sewing machine
This. Plus how about babies washcloths and burp cloths? I had an early csection so I sent my DH to get the balance of my registry and the girl there talked him out of one pack of organic burp cloths and instead sold him 5. Then we had a DD that never vomited. So we use the surplus washcloths and the burpcloths for napkins, when they get hammered we'll switch them to rags.
Also, if you buy scissors with the zig zag edge you can cut bought or reused cloth and not worry about the fraying (on many)