Holiday Headstart
Well, here’s something that hardly ever happens … I’m getting a jump start on making some holiday gifts! I was inspired recently by a post on Facebook where Jeanette shared with me how she’d made a gift for the person who takes attendance at the high school. The recipient was shocked to get a beautiful handmade gift out of the blue. She was so overwhelmed, she cried. This got me thinking about the many among us who do their jobs dutifully, effectively and honestly, and deserve some extra thanks. Feeling appreciated and valued, even in a small way, can really raise our spirits these days. And so, I’m going to take Jeanette’s lead and try to bring a bit more kindness to others this holiday season.
I’ve uploaded 4 designs to Spoonflower – more to come soon (requests welcome)! There are a number of different ways to go about this project depending on how many towels you’d like to make. Make one using a fat quarter or fill-a-yard using the ‘horizontal split’ template to make four.
To get started, I designed several fun tea towels using some favorite prints you may recognize. I re-engineered my Chalet pillow from Crate & Barrel to make the cute little ski house design. And if you missed my 12 Days of Christmas tea towel at Crate & Barrel a few years back, this is a fun chance to make your own!
Select Prints + Fabric
This is a super easy and quick project that uses fat quarters. The designs in my collection on Spoonflower are scaled to fit the dimensions of “Lightweight Cotton Twill” – it’s just the right weight and texture to make a high quality, durable kitchen tea towel. If you choose a different fabric, be sure to note that the ‘Chalet’ and ‘12 Days of Christmas’ will only fit on a fat quarter that measures at least 29” x 18”.
To make individual towels with 1 design
To make one tea towel all you’ll need to do is choose a print, choose the “Lightweight Cotton Twill” fabric for this project, choose fat quarter for size and you’re ready to get making!
To make 4 towels using 2 different designs
Head to Spoonflower and click “Start Designing” to use the Fill-A-Yard® feature
Choose the ‘Horizontal Split’ template
Pick your fabric and click ‘design your project’
The example here shows what the layout will look like when Chalet and 12 Days are selected to fill the yard (click to enlarge)
Making your tea towels
Once your fabric arrives from Spoonflower, making your tea towels is simple. I opted to pre-wash the fabric and found that I had to stretch it a tiny bit to reshape before trimming the selvages off. Not hard to do, but next time I think I’ll trim + finish first and then wash to see if that makes any difference.
Trim selvages from fabric
After trimming the selvages, I followed this video from Purl Soho to miter the corners. Instead of the 1/2” seam in the video, I folded the edges 1/4” at a time to keep the towel as big as possible. Before edge-stitching the border down, I tucked a small strip of ribbon into the seam to make the towel easy to hang. That’s it!
Miter the corners
Before edge-stitching the border seam, tuck a small length of ribbon or twill tape into the corner.
In case you don’t sew, I’ve put a few dishtowels I’ve made on the store. They are approximately 17”x28”, made in durable but soft and absorbent cotton twill, and $16.50 each delivered USPS to US addresses; gift wrapping is just $3.50 additional. By comparison, Spoonflower offers finished dishtowels 16”x24”, in canvas, for $26 each delivered to US addresses.
Thanks for reading along! I hope you enjoy making some of these as much as I did. Stay well and keep creating!
XO,
Kate