Cathe

for the ones DH takes for his lunches, and for daily use in our household, I made a bunch of them from old bath towels that had worn thin or were too shabby for other use. I also cut some from a large old terry bathrobe. Just single layers.

For the "company" ones, I cut flannel squares from my stash and used two layers, having the right sides facing out.

All of them were serged around the edges with a variegated thread.

earthwalker

Seersucker is good (cuts down on the ironing) and gingham for everyday or barbeques. For special evenings or when you have people over, linen, hemmed and edged with crochet or cotton type lace gives a bit of glam. You could do some quilted placemats and pick a plain fabric from the placemat palette to do the napkins. Embroidered corners looks pretty as well.

SulaBug

I make mine this same way!! :D :D :D :D

jeanne aka nzlstar

i've always loved cloth napkins. over the decades i've bought some in stores and luckily found some cheap at the church flea market and some at garage sales. dont think i ever paid full retail price for them tho.
some are the linen a bit like tone on tone fabrics but the texture is real not just visual. they also sell them at places like cost plus or pier one imports if you have those near you. prices pretty good too as they last for years and years.
i love them. using them everyday. they are so much more absorbant than paper napkins. tho i dont know about using regular quilting cotton, i dont think it would be heavy enough.
i'd say either look for them on sale everytime you're out and about or buy some yardage of the linen tablecloth fabric, cut and sew the edges down and should work a treat.
mine vary in size from 10inch square, not as useful to about 16 inch square. you could also have a good nosey at the ones in the shops to see what you think is better size to make your own.
...and keep a close eye on those garage sales etc around you. amazing how many folks now cant be bothered adding to the laundry, they're so small doesnt make a lot of difference to me, so they sell cheap with what they think is just more stuff...we all know better tho, eh. i just hated using paper and half way thru a drippy meal needing to get up and get more napkins.
hope that helps some.

Sugarpumpkin

Thanks so much for all of you great ideas!

Mamaskeeto

We went green at our house last year and use fabric napkins only. I use the same fabric I use for quilting.

AnnaK

I've been using my serger to make dinner napkins from leftover quilt fabric. We're trying to use less paper at my house too, so no more paper napkins for dinner. Some of the novelty fabrics lend themselves well to the dinner napkin idea. We have some for Mexican food (red peppers on a black background), cookouts (hot dog and hamburger print). . . I'm also making them for my friends as hostess gifts, birthdays. . . My grandsons got some with Clifford The Big Red Dog. I serge mine, but hemming them looks great too!