One of the details I have been working on for Lynne is napkins and napkin rings. I have undercloths in two different colors...the light green and the navy blue, and I originally thought I'd just provide napkins to match. When the accent cloths began to take shape those two colors weren't quite lively enough for summer and fall, so I added napkins in darker green and rust for those seasons. Getting these things square was a challenge, not to mention my perennial trouble with mitered corners, but now I have made so many that I am starting to figure it out.
All along I had been wondering about napkin rings. I hardly ever use them because I change my tables so often and never allow the time to make or buy them. I just rummage in my ribbon box and hope for something suitable. For these settings though there is as much lead time as I want to take and it seems a little unfinished and slap-dash not to attend to this design point. I stuck with ribbon, but made actual bands with snaps and decorated them with buttons. The grosgrain ribbon makes a good base for this and comes in many colors, although not enough when you really get into the nitty gritty of matching. Only the autumn ones had to be made from linen scraps because the ribbon was close without being close enough, if you know what I mean. I used buttons to pull more colors in and add that dimensionality that beads and buttons provide. You could really get into this if you liked beading, and the ribbon can be embroidered as well, but I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, so I just did a little. I hope they will work as I imagine they will.