How to Fold Napkins for Dinner Parties

Fold dinner napkins into complicated-looking shapes.

Holidays dinners and other formal celebrations benefit from festive table settings. Few things set a table apart like decoratively folded and arranged napkin designs. These napkin sculptures look elaborate and difficult to create, but the average person can construct a set in less than an hour. Learn to make complicated looking napkin folds to put your table settings a step above the average.

Things You'll Need

• Square cloth napkins
• Goblets

Instructions

Diamond Napkin Fold

1. Lay a napkin on the table in front of you. Orient the napkin so that the edges are at the top and bottom, as well as to the right and to the left. Grasp the top two corners of the napkin and fold the top half down over the bottom half, aligning all of the edges.

2. Fold the left half of the folded napkin over the right half, aligning all of the edges smoothly, leaving a square-shaped napkin made up of multiple layers.

3. Grasp the top layer of the bottom right corner. Fold it up and to the left to create a diagonal fold. The corner should fold up and lay directly upon the upper left corner.

4. Grasp the second layer of the bottom right corner. Fold it toward the upper left corner, but don't fold it all the way to the top. Have the point finish about 1 inch below the upper left point. Fold up the third and fourth layers of the bottom right corner, bringing each corner up lower than the previous one. The corners end up folded in a series, ending with the one on top of the upper left point.

5. Fold the right side of the folded napkin under the napkin body. Fold the left side of the folded napkin under the napkin body. A diamond-shaped napkin remains with a row of points aiming up the body of the napkin design.

Goblet Fan Fold

1. Lay the napkin on the table in front of you. Have the edges going vertically and horizontally.

2. Grasp the top corners of the napkin and fold the napkin in half by bringing them down on top of the bottom corners. Fold the left half of the folded napkin up and over the right half of the napkin. You have a napkin square made up of four layers of fabric.

3. Grasp the right side of the folded napkin and fold it up about 1 inch. Fold this folded bit and fold it under 1 inch. Continue folding in this accordion-like manner until the entire napkin is folded square.

4. Fold the bottom edge of the accordion-folded fabric and fold it up 2 inches. Grasp the napkin at this folded spot.

5. Place the napkin into a water goblet, with the folded bottom end in the bottom of the glass. Gently fan out the top edge of the napkin fan.

References

• Napkin Folding Guide: The Diamond
• Napkin Folding Guide: The Goblet Fan Fold

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Napkin folding videos