It's been just one of those days! I got up, determined to put a particular motif on some table napkins. (Something I had never done before.) I tweaked my design (especially digitised with a particular friend in mind), added a placement line and a basting stitch as per Martine's excellent instructions and put it on my memory stick. So far so good, but by the time I got into my sewing cave the stick had disappeared. I always put it into my jeans pocket when I take it out of the PC but it wasn't there. I wasted half an hour searching the house and garden, even places I hadn't been, and eventually gave up and found another stick. Back to the PC. (Can you hear my afternoon ticking away?)

I chose the perfect colour to tone with my friends dining room and when I lifted it from the rack, several miles of thread decided to explode from the spool. I pulled most of it off and wound a bobbin. (I wanted the embroidery to look the same on both sides.) I just about managed to test stitch the design, but the thread wasn't running properly so I changed the colour scheme ready to start again on the napkins.
Up to now, I hadn't found the set of four I knew I had in my stash, so I risked an avalanche and stuck my head in the cupboard. Now, you thought I wasn't going to find them didn't you? Well you are wrong, I found them straight away and then I remembered that they were damask with a pattern of roses. Absolutely unsuitable for use with my design. Back to the cupboard.
To cut a long story a little bit shorter, I found two plain white tea towels which I cut in half.
So my question for today is, can napkins be rectangular? Too late to tell me no though because mine are.
I did learn something useful though - if you turn the tension right down when you baste the "napkin" to the stabiliser, the stitches pull out much easier to finish the job off.
PS I found my memory stick in the back pocket of my jeans while I was clearing up.