Home Made Towels

My grandma makes the best dish towels. Yea that is what I said and I mean it. I never thought I could fall in love with something as silly as a dish towels, but I did. They absorb things great, dry dishes perfectly, drying hands are a snap, and they will clean counter tops till they sparkle. Besides liking the towels because they are perfect is every way, they hold a deep sentimental value for me.
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They were different than other towels I had seen. They had such a cute country feeling to them and they always had an embroidered image on them that my grandmother had hand sewn. I grew up loving those towels and all the pictures of the kittens cleaning, puppies playing, and milk maids on the farm.

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I recently decided that I wanted to make my own; my own set of dish towels that would work great and my girls could see and love also. So, I called my grandma and asked her what she used... and ... well... it was simple. REALLY SIMPLE. All you need is...

• Flour sack fabric (you can buy pre-cut and packaged fabric from Wal-Mart for about $4 bucks)
• Embroidery thread
• Needle
• Pattern (either one you have made from paper or an iron on transfer that can be bought from any craft store)
• Quilting hoop

First, make a pattern that you are going to use to cut the fabric that you want to sew on the towel. I wanted a bird, so I drew a bird with a pencil and when I got what I liked, I traced it with pen. I then cut out the bird, I also cut the wing out of the body because I wanted the wing to be a different color fabric.

When I had my pattern for the bird and wing, I placed them and pinned them on their fabric. Once they were succoured, I cut them out leaving me with one fabric wing and one fabric body.
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Take one of the flour sack towels and iron it flat. Once you have it wrinkle free, go ahead and pin the fabric wing and body where you would like them sewn. Just make sure that you don't put them too close the the edge, or you wont have enough room for the hoop to hold the fabric completely. Once they are pinned on, put the hoop on.

Now take your thread and needle and GO TO TOWN. Stitch the pieces on any way you would like to. If you don't know how to stitch, there are plenty of websites that can show you how to. Here is a website that show some fairly good images.

You can really get creative with these towels. You can either sew fabric on like I did or buy iron on transfers that will put an image right on the towel for you to trace with thread; which are very handy and reusable. You can make a whole Sunday-Saturday towel set. You can even sew ribbon on the edges to help give it a nice crisp cut feel. So have fun and get creative.