Christmas Napkins with Lace Corners For Your Holiday Table
I love to set an elegant table for our family Christmas dinner. I get out the good china, silverware and crystal, and, of course, cloth napkins. In the past I've embroidered some napkins, but was never really satisfied that they were exactly what I wanted for the table. Now, though, I have solved that dilemma with some beautiful and elegant napkins with lace corners from OESD. Why, there's even free-standing lace napkin rings to complete the picture!
The Lace Corners Design
2019 Holiday Celebration
OESD issues a special holiday collection each year that comes with Spree members monthly offerings (September through November), but is also available as a separate purchase in our stores or online. This year's special Holiday Celebration collection is called Silver Bells.
The Holiday Celebration includes 3 different Silver Bells collections:
Ornaments 
Decor 
Quilt
By the way, you can get the Silver Bells Ornaments collection free with any $79.00 online purchase now through November 30, 2019.
Silver Bells Decor
I chose the lace corner napkin to make for my table. I love it! In addition to lace corners for napkins the collection also has a design for lace corners for a table cloth, a candle wrap, a napkin ring, designs to make lace doilies, accent designs and quilting designs. Check out the details of the full Decor collection here.
Let's Embroider!
Making lace corners for a napkin is really easy. The sew out take a little time as it takes a lot of stitches to make free standing lace, but it's well worth it. Besides, there are very few thread changes or individual steps to take, so you can just "let it sew" and do other things while your machine does all the work!
The Napkin
I purchased some nice cloth napkins from Bed Bath and Beyond for this project. The edges of the napkins are hemmed rather than rolled. In my opinion, for something as pretty as lace corners, the napkins should be of nice quality fabric and should be hemmed.
Wash Away Stabilizer
I used wash away mesh stabilizer for each napkin. I used OESD's Aquamesh. This stabilizer is perfect for free standing lace as it provides the necessary support for the embroidery process, but washes away cleanly once the embroidery is finished.
Bobbin Thread
As with any free standing lace design, use the same color thread in the bobbin as you use in the needle. You want the back to look as good as the front since you see both sides of the napkin. You can get some great colors in prewound bobbins at any of our locations in either "class 15" or "L" size.
Sew Out Steps
Hoop 2 pieces of wash away mesh stabilizer. For the lace corner napkin, a 5x7 hoop works great.
Place hoop in your embroidery machine
Load the Napkin Corner design into your embroidery machine
Stitch out the first sequence directly on the stabilizer. This is the placement stitch for the napkin.
Place the napkin on the stabilizer, aligning the edges of the napkin with the diagonal stitches on each side of the placement stitch. Tape in place.
Stitch the next sequence, which is the tack down stitch for the edge of the napkin. (White stitches shown below).
Trim away the corner of the napkin as close to the tack down stitch as possible.
Place the hoop back in the machine and complete the embroidery sequence, using the thread colors of your choice. I used green thread (needle and bobbin) for the accent that goes above the lace. I used white thread (needle and bobbin) for the lace corner of the napkin.
Finishing the Lace Corner
Once the embroidery is finished, remove the napkin from the hoop and trim away the excess stabilizer. Trim as close as possible to the stitches.
Rinse away all stabilizer by soaking corner of napkin in water. Ensure that the lace does not dry stiff by changing out the water once or twice.
Also, Calgon water softener (you can find it in the laundry aisle of your grocery store) is great if you have hard water to help the stabilizer completely dissolve.
Now you have a beautiful napkin for your Christmas dinner table. Add the free standing lace napkin ring from the collection, and you have a lovely accent to the napkin and your dinner table!
OESD Gives You Choice
If you don't want the entire Silver Bells Decor collection, you can purchase individual designs of the collection from the OESD website and download them:
Free Standing Lace Napkin Ring
Coupon
You're going to need some bobbins! So how about 30% off pre-wound bobbins in the color of your choice? If we don't have the color you need, we can always order for you in the right size for your machine.
You're going to need wash away stabilizer! So how about 30% off any brand of wash away stabilizer we stock? Floriani has Wet N Gone; Embellish has Rinse Away Mesh; OESD has Aqua Mesh. Just be sure, for free standing lace, you get the mesh type wash away stabilizer and not the film-like topper.
Note: All of the wash away stabilizers come in a "sticky" form and Floriani has a fusible version as well.
I'd love to see some pictures if you make any of the items from the Silver Bells collections! Feel free to post them below in the comments.