How to Fold Turkey Napkins

Think of folding your dinner napkins into specific shapes as a form of origami, the Japanese art of decorative paper folding. If you want to fold a napkin into a turkey, do it right. Go for the full effect and use cloth napkins instead of paper. It'll increase the "wow" factor when your guests sit down at your Thanksgiving dinner table. Napkins folded into turkeys are an enjoyable, dramatic way to introduce the element of sculpture to a beautifully laid holiday table. Your guest's awe and admiration of your handiwork will be an excellent ice breaker. Lively conversation is sure to follow.

Things You'll Need

• Cloth dinner napkin
• Iron

Instructions

1. Purchase or use at least 15-inch square, cloth napkins. If you can't find them commercially manufactured, consider buying fabric, cutting the napkins to size and hemming them. Cotton or linen fabrics work well.

2. Lay the napkin flat on a table, and fold it in half from right to left. Make sure the edges are matched. The folded edge is on the right side, and the short edges are at the top and bottom.

3. Start at the bottom, short edge, and begin to pleat both layers of the napkin back and forth like an accordion. Make each pleat 1-inch wide. Continue folding the pleats until 3/4 of the napkin is pleated. Finger press your pleats with each new fold or press them in place with a hot iron.

4. Stop and place each thumb under the stack of folded pleats, and place your index fingers on top of the stack.

5. Fold the stack of pleats in half in the middle of the napkin by bringing the left half of the pleats under the right half.

6. Take the top right corner of the unpleated portion of the napkin, and bring the tip down to the bottom left corner of the flat, unpleated portion of the napkin to create a triangle.

7. Finger press or press with a hot iron along the fold of the triangle that was formed. Tuck the overhanging vertical edge back under so the vertical edge of the triangle is in line with the fold where the pleats are folded in half.

8. Set the napkin down on the center of a dinner plate with pleats fanned out in the back of the turkey and the point of the folded triangle facing the edge of the table in front of where a dinner guest will be seated.

Tips & Warnings

• The bigger the napkin you start with, the bigger the finished folded turkey napkin.

References

• The Holiday Spot: How to Fold a Turkey Napkin