Unpaper Towels & Cloth Napkins--How Many?

Depends on how often you do laundry and whether or not you're going to reuse the towels or napkins before washing them. Also what are you using the towels for. What are they made of? Since you say unpaper, I'm guessing they aren't a woven fabric.

I use my dish cloth for one day and wipe up any spills that happen on the counters, table, stove with that one cloth. I have a stack of old terry towels in my kitchen on a counter that I use for messes on the floor. I go thru 7-10 dish clothes and probably 1-3 old terry towels in a week. I usually rinse out the terry towel and use it again. I only do laundry every couple of weeks. That means I need 14-20 dish cloths and 2-4 terry towels, tho in reality I don't wash the terry towels every time I do laundry.

I do use nice looking terry kitchen towels for drying my hands and dish towels for drying dishes. I change the terry towels every day and the dish towel, which seldom gets used, every week.

As for cloth napkins, we use the same ones over all week long. Each person has their napkin. For 4 people I'd need 8 napkins. However, I like to use different colors and patterns and so I probably have two or three dozen napkins or more in sets of 4 that I've collected over the years. Periodically I go thru them and donate ones I haven't used in a year.

I made my Christmas napkins out of wash and wear fabric in a red and green plaid. I think it has some polyester along with cotton in it because they wash and dry nicely without needing to be ironed and yet absorb well. 100% cotton absorbs more and most of my napkins are that. I don't mind a few wrinkles and so don't iron them. I have some linen napkins which I do have to iron and so seldom use them. Synthetic fabrics do not absorb well and make poor napkins.

My daughter has made some GREAT cloth "napkins" and even made some for us as Christmas gifts last year! She uses old 100% cotton t shirts that she picks up at thrift stores and garage sales. She has fun finding things with logos and such that compliment interests of the people she is giving them to. For instance...my husband is retired military so she made a couple of them with patriotic logos on one side ( she normally has one side a solid color and a logo or pattern on the other). We travel quite a bit since we are retired so one of them has "on the road again" with an old model t ford truck!
She and I Both use an old rataan basket to keep ours in...we just roll them up into long "tubes" and stick them in the basket for use. You need to get enough to get you from one wash day to the next... in her house she is doing laundry every other day for the most part...so she doesn't need nearly as many as a family who wouldnt be doing wash as frequently. The other nice thing about them is that they can generally be used more than once...they just fold them up and place them at the place of the person who used them...so they are ready to be used at the next meal...if they haven't gotten too soiled.!!!
Congratulations on going green!!!

I am not all the way there, but I do use alot of cloth towels. I do home childcare and we are required to use SINGLE use towels (whether its paper or cloth) for hand drying. So for the children, I have purchased, on BOGO sales, colorful washrag/washcloths. These are great for hand drying if you need to, or are germy-picky as I am, about re-using them. I do alot of laundry, due to my business needs, but with these small towels, it takes a few days of using those and bibs and baby blankets for me to fill a laundry load.

For other general use around the house (dish drying, wiping things/spills, cleaning, etc) we have purchased a few 30 pack sets of white terry towels from Sams Club. They are with the shop/garage items. We use them for daily face washing/make up removal and hand dryng in the bathroom, and another drawerful in the kitchen for that rooms uses. We have several sets. When they get too stained or grungy (which takes a while, as they are all white and can be bleached like in a hotel), they become garage towels for washing the car or checking the oil, etc. We cycle them thru the house...bathroom gets the newest, then kitchen then garage....

I have not progressed to fabric napkins :-)

I have never used paper towels on a regular basis. I have a simple system I keep in two drawers by the sink.
Cloth napkins, about 20 for a family of six. We use them all. (I actually keep these in the dining room, in a drawer in the china cabinet) I even send them in lunch boxes.
A dozen washcloths for wiping counters and such.
2 dozen towels for drying and wiping our hands while we cook, large spills on the counter, etc...
I also keep about a dozen rags in the drawer next to the towels. These are for especially messy cleanup, used once and either thrown away or tossed in the laundry. They are made up of old bath towels that were going threadbare or ripped. Still useful, but not pretty. Always plentiful.

I launder these things once a week. For the napkins,any fabric you can wipe your hands on is great. Zig zag or serge the edges and you're good to go.

Well, I've never heard of unpaper towels. I'm intrigued - I'm going to have to look those up!

I've been using cloth for a long time. I keep my towels and cleaning cloths in a drawer near the sink. Since we were a family of six for many years, I have stocked up on lots of them - flour-sack towels, dishtowels, bar towels, whatever I could find on sale. I have enough so the towel drawer can be full and there will also be some clean ones in a basket down near the washer. Every towel/cloth in that drawer gets used for almost any purpose - from wiping dishes to cleaning up a mess on the floor - so I can't be very particular about how they look, but it's not a big deal. They don't get tossed away until they've become incredibly ugly-looking or worn so thin I can practically see through them.

My husband likes paper towels for certain purposes, so we have some of those, too, but a multi-pack from Sam's will last almost a year.

You can check at Sam's or Costco for cloth napkins. If there's a restaurant supply store in your area, check the prices there, too. Sometimes it's possible to find terry towels good-looking enough to use as napkins for casual meals. (Terry might be a good fabric for making napkins of. I don't know how flannel would hold up.) One of my best finds - years ago - was a set of huge blue check cotton napkins from Pier One. They were a little pricey, but so good-looking I couldn't resist - and they've lasted since 1997, so I think they've more than paid for themselves.

I dont know how many u need, depends on how often you would do a load of laundry they would be in. But maybe fold them (both kinds) and put them in a napkin holder just on the counter. Or in the top drawer.

I have about the same number as you and it has been plenty for us (4 people, laundered every week or two). I made a wooden dispenser for the towels. If you google unpaper towel dispenser you will see some different ideas. I put clean ones in the top and pull them out from a slot in the bottom/front. Like another mom, we use our napkins all week (or less or more as needed). We each have our own handmade napkin ring to keep them seperate. I made my own napkins from a cotton blend. I'm not really sure what it is, but you can tell by feeling different fabrics what feels like it would work. I am sure the people at the fabric store will know what to use. I recommend a stain resistent fabric that does not require ironing but has some absorbency.
Good luck,
C.

I bought 7 napkins per person - I figured that way we could each use one a day and not have to do laundry for a week. I think an extra set would work even better cause some foods are messy and require multiple napkins.

I haven't done the paper towels, we don't use many of them honestly. I did buy large white very thin cotton towels for the kids to use when drying their hands - I put up hooks and used drapery rings that clamp to hold the towels up, they each have labeled hooks so then I only have to change them every few days. I have 4 sets per person for those.

Hi there,
I just came across this fabulous post at SimpleMom that laid it all out for me... hope you find it helpful, too! Basically, the adage is the more you have and more accessible they are to everyone, the easier to make cloth a reality... good luck!

http://simplemom.net/how-to-create-a-paperless-kitchen/

I've started using more cloth, and want to change the cloth I use for wiping counters every day. I bought 10 white microfiber towels from the Target $1 section and wrote the days of the week on the tags of seven. I still use paper towels for meat related wiping, but almost everything else is wiped down with the towel of the day that stays out on the counter. Then I just throw it in the wash. If I forget/wonder if I changed the towel, I check the tag. The other three are for backup in case laundry gets backed up or I need more than 1 that day. I've been doing this for over a couple of months now and it's worked for us (a family of four with a toddler and a preschooler).