I made my parents some cloth napkins for Christmas and they really enjoyed having napkins to go with their new kitchen. While I was on my batik napkin-making kick, I made some for them too.
The color they painted their kitchen is very pretty, but difficult to find stuff to match. I brought a swatch of their paint to JoAnn's to help pick out fabric for them. I chose two fabrics that I thought blended well together (going for the whole casual, mismatched summer thing) and would also match their kitchen. One was a deep purple/green, the other was a blue/green/tan. After I got home I realized that the blue/green/tan had a bunch of rusty brown in it. The two fabrics looked horrible together. I don't know how I didn't see that in the store. I think I grabbed the wrong bolt.
So, back to JoAnn's. I bought a little bit more of the purple/green fabric so that I would have enough to make a set of six napkins.
I gave my parents the napkins when I visited back in May (yeah, real timely with my posting here). I just saw them again last weekend and those napkins are still on the kitchen table. Mom is quite happy with my handiwork.
