Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Easy Christmas tea towels

I've been a busy bee getting ready for Christmas this year.  With my new found sewing skills I wanted to create gifts for family and friends that were personal and thoughtful and saved a bundle over store bought gifts.   I've been sewing away making tea towels and other things (Shhh, it's a surprise) for family. Here is one example of a tea towel that I made out of Scottie dog fabric with red ball fringe. It was super easy to make, I'll show you how below. 


First off, I bought 1 yard of Christmas fabric from Joann's fabric store and was able to make two tea towels with each yard, by cutting length-wise down the middle.  When I got home the first thing I did was prewash my fabric so that it would shrink, using table salt and cold water.  After drying my fabric, I used the iron to get out all the wrinkles.  Next I trimmed off all the frayed edges using my rotary cutter and mat and yard stick as a guide.


After everything was trimmed nicely I used my zig zag stitch on my sewing machine to sew all the edges to prevent any more fraying.


Next I made nice corner folds by simply folding down the edges, pressing, and then folding in the sides and pressing again.


Next I straight stitched along the fold where the zig zag stitches were all around the whole towel and never lifting my needle as I went.



After the whole thing was nicely sewn shut around all the sides, I added ric rac to some of them and pom pom trim to others.  Here is an example of how I sewed the ric rac on. First I pinned it to where I wanted it and then used the straight stitch to sew it on, making sure to back stitch at each end so it won't lift up.


Here is the finished towel hanging on the oven.   I love this green fabric with modern trees.


I hope I don't ruin any surprises, and can't wait to give these out as Christmas gifts.  I've got other home made Christmas gifts to share with you, but I think I'll wait until after the holidays. Don't want to ruin all the fun. Happy Sewing!

xo
Cathleen

1 comment:

Sarni said...

Wowsa! Those are both terrific. I am extremely please that you have given up the "fear of sewing" . You are a natural!

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