It’s a funny thing, the how of things remembered.
I remember making these napkins seven hundred at least years ago on a sewing machine I no longer have and that the fabric is a Ralph Lauren print, which I bought from a remnants table not because of Ralph but because… blue and white. I used to have a thing for blue and white (now more drawn to turquoise, orange, yellow and green). Children with mustardy faces who now have messy children of their own used them daily to wipe that mustard and more from lips and hands and while I wouldn’t advise looking too closely, they’ve held up well (maybe thanks in part to the magic of Ralph, not to mention the magic of line drying in the sun) and I remember too a certain few folk for a patio lunch one summer day who snorted when the cloth napkins came out, insisting I needn’t treat them specially, that they weren’t above using paper like everyone else and how for a moment I had no idea what they meant by ‘treating them specially’, assumed some kind of joke going on over my head then found out they were sadly serious, that the napkins meant something on a level I couldn’t de-code and when I tried to assure them I wasn’t fussing (because this was becoming A Thing with them), that we used these napkins all the time, that we never used paper, they took even greater offense at what they assumed was a lie.
I no longer see those people (surprise!), but the napkins (and the lineage of children with mustardy faces, also a clothesline) are still happily part of our daily lives, summer, winter, fall, and spring.
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Matilda Magtree 
Those cloth napkins are lovely even after all those years of being used. More and more people are going back to cloth napkins now as they are environmentally friendlier than paper napkins.
Well, on close inspection you might see the years! Which I suppose is part of their value too.
I love this, and Ralph’s print. We use cloth napkins all the time. I have a big drawer full. I think of the stains as part of living a life, its patina. When our mothers died, we found several dozen linen damask napkins, unused, ever, in their linen cupboards and realized that they had almost certainly been wedding gifts in the late 1940s (J’s mum), 1950 (mine). Who were they waiting for? Like the fine china and the silver. I can’t imagine anyone more special or important than my friends and my family so yes, the cloth napkins come out, and we eat on our “good” plates, the silver (plate), because they are worth it.
Music to my ears, Theresa. I recently sent some exquisite tiny silver pieces that used to belong to my partner’s mum, that in the thirty years I knew her, I never saw her use once. So I sent them to the three year old great grandchild she never met, who I hope will use them in conjunction with her new little oven (I envy her that oven! I coveted the Easy Bakes of my friends once upon a time. Still not quite over it.) When we moved I pared everything down. There is no ‘good’ or ‘everyday’ anymore. Everything is up for grabs at all times. I LOVE having only a very small schmozzle of cutlery, some decades old IKEA, some sterling silver. all in one kitchen drawer, along with the corkscrew and veggie peeler. And, yes, WHO exactly are these more-important people we save ‘the good stuff’ for?? It’s an interesting phenomenon really…
Also, I love the idea of stains as part of life’s patina…