Cloth Napkins Anyone?

[monkeys4mama]

Anyone use these? We have four kids, so of course we go through tons of napkins and paper towels. I have been thinking of starting to use cloth napkins for the table. I mentioned this to DH who felt it would be inconvenient and only result in a lot more laundry (we already have plenty of laundry and are washing cloth diapers for two). I am not sure cloth napkins would add that much to the laundry, but I am not sure how much they'll save us in money or how great the environmental impact of paper napkins is anyway. (I draw the line at cloth bathroom wipes for the big people in the family but we do use them for the littles).

So anyway, I'm wondering how many of you use them and what your thoughts are? Also, can I make these from the cotton wovens I have in my stash? I have lots of cute cotton woven prints to choose from, but wasn't sure if they'd be absorbent enough. I don't want to go buy new fabric for this. It's not in the budget.

TIA

[crissei]

We always use napkins. I just wash them along with the tablecloths.
I have a weak spot for vintage linens. All of my napkins and tablecloths are white linen damask that I buy at thrift stores,auctions,antique shops ect. for cheap. The patterns almost never match but they are so beautiful and the fact that they are all white makes up for it. Sometimes you can even find them with beautiful monogramming.
And real linen wears like iron, they last forever!

[littlemama06]

My mom always used cloth napkins and now i do. I love them. I found a huge stach at a thrift store for $5, i think there were baout 20 in a bundle. Only a few match but who care!

[MomInFlux]

We're just starting to switch from paper products to cloth. DH and I both realized recently just how many paper products we were going through. I have a fairly sizeable stash of diaper-making materials that I probably won't use for diapers, so I'm in the process of making double-sized napkins out of burley knit terry and full and half-size non-paper towels out of hemp fleece. I think I'll put a small bucket under the sink to hold used napkins/towels and either run a small load of laundry each evening or add them to other laundry. It really doesn't seem to add up to much extra laundry.

Interestingly, DH and I just had the cloth for growups discussion this morning. DH is now on-board, conceptually. However, we'll be replacing the toilet seats in two bathrooms with a bio-bidet, most likely (http://www.biobidet.com/)

[BetsyS]

We use cloth. Like the PP, I've gotten some at thrift stores, some on clearance at Target and Macy's, and others, I've made. I like the fairly thick cotton ones the best. Because these are everyday napkins, I just wash them normally, and I throw bleach into the load every so often to hit the stains (most of our napkins are white, but some are faded colors. LOL)

[pear]

We use cloth napkins. I have some that I made and some that I bought. They dont match. I just wash them once a week with the regular wash. I dont even try to keep out stains. The ones I made are rainbow kitty material and dont show stains and the sun keeps the other ones looking pretty good.

[HydeParkB]

We use cloth napkins, and I wash them with the regular laundry, with the darks. Ours are mostly from yard sales, but also from Target clearance.

They stay in use for a few days/until they get dirty. For especially greasy or messy foods (BBQ or fried chicken), I go ahead and grab the paper napkins, though.

[bdavis337]

Yep, we use them. 2 kids and 2 adults. I go through TONS of them each day, and just toss them into the laundry as I go. I pick them up here and there at yardsales, Goodwill, etc. I even bought a large flannel sheet and cut it into squares that I didn't bother to sew up on the edges, and I use those for cleanups, baby face cleanup after a messy meal, etc. My favorites right now are the leftover scraps from some t-shirt tye dying we just did for the 4th of July. I've got about 6 scrap squares and I've been using them as baby wipes. Now those I DO launder separately!

Like the pp, I don't bother to treat for stains either! And I just put them right into the washing machine, so whatever gets washed always has a few napkins in the load and that way I never run out.

[monkeys4mama]

Thanks for all the feedback. Sounds like many of you are using these regularly and happy with them. I would probably just wash with the regular laundry too. I do so much wash that it prolly wouldn't make a noticeable difference. LOL!

But you all sound like you're using either linen ('real' cloth napkins) or other (diaper type, etc) materials. Does anyone think my cotton wovens will work? I really would like to use stuff from stash...

If not, I suppose I can try the garage sales and thrift stores, but time is limited lately as is cash so if I could make my own, that would be ideal.

[monkeys4mama]

Originally Posted by MomInFlux

.

Interestingly, DH and I just had the cloth for growups discussion this morning. DH is now on-board, conceptually. However, we'll be replacing the toilet seats in two bathrooms with a bio-bidet, most likely (http://www.biobidet.com/)

Interesting... When I was a kid, my cousins had a bidet in one of their bathrooms. They had this huge, fancy, three-story, seven-bedroom mansion of a house. I always thought the bidet was curious, but weird... Now as an adult, I think I'm even more squeemish about it. I don't know why, but the idea of water squirting me clean after the bathroom just gives me the creeps. I'm prolly strange, huh? I mean, I don't mind scraping poo off cloth diapers or using cloth wipes and when people act grossed out about it, I always respond by telling them I am fully washable. But the bidet thingie... Well, I dunno...

Back to cloth napkins... I can *do* cloth napkins... LOL!

[LilMama23]

We use them, and some of ours are cotton woven.
I wash them with my dishtowels and burp cloths.

[mamimapster]

Some of ours are cotton wovens too, and I just wash them with regular clothes. If something is really stained etc. I will usually wash that with a towels load-I have a dry bucket in the laundry room where really yuky cloth of any kind goes and those I wash seperatel-seperate load are rare . We basically are mostly cloth here-cloth wipes, cloth tea towels, mama cloth. it gets so easy when you are used to it.

[~Megan~]

We do cloth napkins. I got some super cheap flannel and doubled it up. I prefer the absorbancy of the flannel to a cotton woven. I bet a cotton woven would work though, just not as absorbant.

[sarasprings]

Be careful if you use cloth napkins. My 4 yo son is a cloth snob now. If someone tries to give him a paper napkin he tells him he doesn't want the scratchy kind.

[sapphire_chan]

Dh and I usually don't need napkins, but when we have messy foods we just use a couple of kitchen cloths. Those are wash cloths, dish cloths, and rags made from cut-up socks--so all sort of a terrycloth texture. They also mean we don't need paper towels.

[phroggies]

We do cloth napkins; I change them about once a week. We use napkin rings to identify each person's napkin (or you can write each person's name on a clothespin or clippy and attach it to the napkin). For what it's worth, although people associate napkin rings with formal dining, they are traditionally meant to identify family napkins from meal to meal.

I do a "rag" load about once a week and the napkins go in with those. We also have a number of flannel rags I made to wipe up DS after meals. Needless to say, we go through several of those each time we sit down at the table.

I have a couple sets made of the kind of fabric you're talking about. They're fine for most of the time--if you're just wiping a bit of grease or stickiness, for instance--but I wouldn't use them for major messes (i.e., DS).

[sweetpeas]

We're a pretty casual/cheap family so unelss we had/have company (rarely) had always just used paper towels for "napkins" anyway, and grabbed them if needed, didn't bother w/ putting them out every meal (then again, we usually "set the table" by putting a stack of plates on the island & serving food up off the stove LOL). When we started going more "cloth" I bought a bunch of cheap white washcloths (think they're in packs of like 18 for a few dollars at walmart, etc) & have them in a basket near the sink (& now I have a pretty wooden "bucket" next to it (got it cheap at Ollies) that we throw the dirties in. For anything we'd use a paper towel for, including "napkins" we just grab one of those instead. If it's just to wipe up something small I generally rinse it out & drape it over the sink like a dish rag, whenever one seems truely dirty I throw it in the bucket, then wash w/ the cloth tp or a load of towels.

[oldcrunchymom]

We do the same as sweetpea, use the cheapo washcloths from discount stores. The good thing about these is that on the rare occasion you have to clean up something REALLY gross, you don't mind tossing the cloth.

[msjd123]

Originally Posted by sweetpeas

We're a pretty casual/cheap family so unelss we had/have company (rarely) had always just used paper towels for "napkins" anyway, and grabbed them if needed, didn't bother w/ putting them out every meal (then again, we usually "set the table" by putting a stack of plates on the island & serving food up off the stove LOL). When we started going more "cloth" I bought a bunch of cheap white washcloths (think they're in packs of like 18 for a few dollars at walmart, etc) & have them in a basket near the sink (& now I have a pretty wooden "bucket" next to it (got it cheap at Ollies) that we throw the dirties in. For anything we'd use a paper towel for, including "napkins" we just grab one of those instead. If it's just to wipe up something small I generally rinse it out & drape it over the sink like a dish rag, whenever one seems truely dirty I throw it in the bucket, then wash w/ the cloth tp or a load of towels.

Wow, what a great idea! Now why didn't I think of that???

[happyfrog]

we switched over about a month? ago or so to cloth napkins - we use like a pp - I bought an 18 pack of washcloths (different colors) for under $4 at WM. This was our 'trial' to see if napkins would work for us. Turns out, YES!! We LOVE it - they work so much better than paper napkins and ds (2 yrs) is quite good at cleaning up his own face/hands now - of course we have to clean him off too, but he really enjoys having his own 'napkin'. Come winter, I plan on buying some busy printed (to hide stains lol) flannel and making double sided napkins 16" square - about 48 or so - I don't reuse from meal to meal, and the additional laundry is negligible - I just toss the 'napkins' into whatever load I'm doing next.


When I DO transition over to 'real' napkins, I plan on keeping some of those washcloths for table use anyway - for messy meals, and the rest, will go to baby wipes. (we cloth diaper anyway)

BettyAnn
mommy to 2 wee ones.