Skip to main content

Kitchen Towel Tutorial

After making the baby blanket the other day, I got to thinking that I could make kitchen towels using the same technique. 

I found a cute cotton remnant at the fabric store:


I love the vintage look, the colors (which work great with my brick kitchen floor), and the chickens.  John holds the reasonable view that barnyard animals don't belong in the kitchen, but I think he made an exception for chickens when I inherited my grandma's rooster decor.  Oldest son even created a painting for me with Grandma's rooster as inspiration:


Anyway, I decided the fabric remnant would make nice towels.  I found some waffle-weave material in the home decor section of the fabric store, and used it as towel backing.

The technique was the same as the baby blanket.  First, be sure to pre-wash your fabric.  The waffle-weave, in particular, shrank a lot! 

Then, cut your fabric pieces.  I had slightly less than a yard of the remnant, and just cut it so I could get three towels out of the piece.  Then I cut the waffle-weave to match.  You could also use a kitchen towel as a template.  Just cut it slightly larger than your desired finished size, to account for the seam allowance.


Place right-sides together, and sew around, leaving a gap of several inches.  Trim the corners, then turn the towel right-side out.  Then iron the edges and top-stitch all the way around.  The top-stitching will close the opening you left.  I chose to experiment with decorative stitching, though I should have used a red thread if I wanted it to show up for a photo.

I don't think the towels turned out nicely enough for gift-giving.  The waffle-weave is thick and caused me a bit of trouble when I did the top-stitching.  I think I would use flour sack cloth as a backing if I were making the towels as gifts.  However, I like the end result for my kitchen.



Thankful thought:  Thanks for the joys of new kitchen towels!




Comments

  1. BiancaMay 17, 2012 at 9:36 AM

    Nice and quick way to personalize your kitchen.
    Clever!
    Personally not a big fan of chickens or roosters. Do you know how dusty they are?! Absurdly dusty!! (my mom had a chicken in her kitchen once, can't even begin telling you how dirty her kitchen was. Big blobs of dust on her windows were the chick flew/jumped against the glass... Took as a full day to clean everything)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Conversations are so much nicer when more than one person does the talking. :-) Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts; I'd love to hear from you!

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Things of Thankful: Oregon Edition, Part 3

  A western bluebird, sitting at the base of a house window, looks inside Thanks (1) to those who have sent well-wishes for my mom's recovery. Her wrist is healing up nicely. I met a friend from high school for lunch this past week. It was so nice to have a chance to visit with her for a couple of hours. She is one of those friends who it doesn't matter how much time has passed, we can pick right back up into meaningful conversations. Lunch ended all too soon, but I'm so thankful (2) for her, and I'm thankful (3) that she reminded me of the importance of reaching out to others.  Being in my parents' home this week, visiting with a long-time (I'm not saying old!) friend, and with Mother's Day tomorrow, my mind naturally reflects upon the women in my life. I'm thankful (4) for an incredible mom--a gentle woman who taught and loved and guided us (and still does.) I'm thankful (5) for grandmas who were different in their personalities but united in their...
3 comments
Read more

Ten Things of Thankful: I Should Blog More Often

  Tall red poppies bloom against the brick remains of an old homestead A couple of weeks ago, John and I hiked in Alpine, Utah, to see the poppy gardens near the old Lambert homestead. We knew if we waited, we would miss the peak of the flowers. One minute, flowers are blooming, and the next minute, that particular floral show is over until next year.  The Ten Things of Thankful blog hop runs every week, but sometimes I miss the boat and don't get a post composed. I find, though, that those weeks that I do join in, I'm more apt to look for (and find!) the good in life--regardless of whether it was a "good" week or a "bad" week. Just as taking time to hike pays off with a beautiful view, taking the time to share ten things I'm thankful for pays off with a feeling of peace, satisfaction, and gratitude.  The past three weeks have been spent at home. It's been so nice to catch up on things here. The air conditioner cools the house again, we've taken ...
3 comments
Read more

Monday Mentions: Equate Crutches

Have you ever needed crutches? I hadn't, until a week ago.  I'm pretty sure I strained a muscle while running a half-marathon.  (That sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? I'm not actually that cool; the last time I strained a muscle it was from carrying too many shopping bags at once.) In any case, I found myself in need of some crutches. I sent my husband to the store to get some. Photo: A pair of crutches leans against a wall  Not that crutches are all that complex, but because I hadn't used any before, I wondered if I could figure out how to adjust them to fit me properly. I shouldn't have worried. John came home from Walmart with their generic store brand of crutches, complete with instructions. First, I needed to take out a long bolt that went through the hand grip. Then I needed to find my height range, push down two metal pieces, and slide the crutches until the little metal pieces came up in the hole near my height range. (Having two people for this...
4 comments
Read more