cleverchickadee
quornflour
texaskilletFiled under: Clever Chickadees, craft, green, inspiration, kid friendly, penny saver, sewing, texaskillet, time saver | Tags: Clever Chickadees, craft, green, inspiration, kid friendly, penny saver, quilt, sewing, texaskillet, time saver
It might be time to start a series of these. You know those people that invite you over and go to all the effort, pull out all the stops, prepare to entertain YOU.
Well those people deserve a gift, a small token of appreciation, something to show you know the effort they spent and love that they think you are worth it.
Here is a super simple project that is ALL DIY and lets you personalize or neutralize depending on how well you know the recipient.
Set of Dish OR Hand towels
All you need:
Sewing machine
Plain towels – I prefer the Costco 6 pack in white, but they sell a few other colors. Obviously this can be as lush or functional as you want.
FABRIC OF YOUR CHOICE! Yes you can totally do this with a fat quarter or scraps from your last quilting project, etc.
Thread
Scissors
Optional: measuring device. J
1st – Measure width of the towels of choice, feel free to eyeball it, LOVE that term.
2nd – Cut fabric to a ¼ inch Wider than your towel
3rd – Now cut fabric to get the desired height of the strip you will sew onto the towel
4th – This step is optional: Pin the fabric onto the towel with just 1/8 of an inch hanging over on the sides.
I say this is optional because I don’t do it. I prefer to just hold everything in place via finger pinning and go for it. Weeeee!
5th – Load your machine with thread that compliments your fabric. Load your bobbin with thread that compliments the towel.
6th – Set your stitch to zigzag and your stitch length to zero. This may be different for some machines, but it should be fairly similar. If you have a satin stitch, you can use that for a nice rounded look.
7th – Run the fabric and towel combo through the sewing machine slowly creating a thick tight zigzag border for your fabric.
8th – Tie off and snip any thread ends for extra security.
What you get in the end should look something like the below. I have fun with this since there are just SOOOO many wonderful fabrics out there. One year I made a whole families worth of gifts with these. It wasn’t super easy because I didn’t know them very well at the time and had to carefully consider what they might want hanging around in their kitchen. But I’ll be honest, that was part of the fun. I hope you enjoy this one and that your friends need towels. 😉 Of course you could just make some towels that will be so much more amazing than anything you’ll find in the store. It’s also a nice way to up-cycle some of those boring towels that you have lying around at the bottom of your linen closet. Oh and if you are nervous about the small ripple effect, just give it a wash and an iron before gifting. It will all work out!
Hint: Be sure to apply the strips to the same side of the same end of each towel. Note where the towel tag is. You don’t want that to be a focal point. YAY!
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