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How to Fold Dinner Napkins 

 Originally Written: October 8, 2010

By  Hanna Trafford

You can do a lot with your dinner napkins that will enhance your festive table decorating – here are a few instructions you can consider using.

How to Fold Table Napkins

Now that you are planning how you will set up and decorate your Thanksgiving dinner table, having a little help with napkin folding ideas maybe a good idea.Here are just a few step by step fancy napkin folding instructions:

 Fan Napkin

  1. Fold the napkin in half
  2. Starting at one end, create accordion pleats about 1 inch wide
  3. Keep folding until you get to the napkin’s half point
  4. Fold the end with pleats in half, ending with the pleats being outside of the fold
  5. Fold the napkin’s unpleated end so that the napkin makes a right angle shape. Best way to do this is to lay the napkin down with open end of the pleats facing away from you. The fold the unpleated section at a 90 degree angle so that the top edge meets the edge of the pleats. The end tail of the unpleated section should be pointing away from the open end of the pleats. This will create “the stand” for the fan.
  6.  Fold the tail end under the napkin and turn the napkin so that the fan opens toward the top and stand supports the fan.

 Peace Lily Napkin

  1. Fold the napkin in half on the diagonal to make a triangle.
  2. Bring outer edges to the middle and fold
  3. Turn the napkin so that free corners are at the bottom – the napkin will now be a diamond shape
  4. Fold the free corners up to meet the top point of the diamond
  5. Roll the diamond’s bottom corner up until it reaches centre of the napkin
  6. Tuck one end of the rolled up section into the other – this will form the back of the folded napkin
  7. Turn the napkin so that the tucks are in the back
  8. Pull free corners down and to the sides to form a lily shape

Pocket Vase Napkin

  1. Fold your napkin twice to make a square.
  2. With the square’s free corners at your upper left. Fold the top layer back to the lower right so that it doesn’t quite meet the folded corner.
  3. Repeat with the third layer
  4. The final layer will stay up
  5. Turn the napkin over
  6. Fold  the side corners back so that they overlap slightly
  7. Turn the napkin right side up again so that the pocket is on top
  8. Press it to help hold pocket shape and insert flowers or your silverware

Hope you have enjoyed these instructions and that they helped you to make you Thanksgiving table beautiful. Please send in your comments, suggestions and experiences – your input is always welcomed and very much appreciated

Hanna Trafford


Hanna is the mother of two grown sons Dan and Dusan Nedelko, and is also the Grandmother to Jax, Cohen and Mila. She is the lead editor of Mama Knows and is hoping to create an exchange of communications with other grandmothers, mothers and daughters - giving everyone the opportunity to learn and share about everything that is "Mama"

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