Since My Embroidery Floss was Out . . .

I wrote a month ago about organizing my embroidery floss.  I still think it looks pretty like a rainbow (geeky).

Since it was all out just staring me in the face, I decided I had better embroider something.  I remembered that I once had this old tablecloth with embroidered dogs on it.  It was on it's last legs, but the dogs on it were so I cute I wanted to preserve the patterns.  I'd show you the tablecloth, but I'm not sure what became of it.  I might be hiding around this house somewhere or it may have finally met its demise.

I had managed, before the tablecloth's untimely disappearance,  to transfer the dogs to tea towels to be embroidered, but had never advanced the project any further.  Well, the time was ripe to get this project done!

I have two towels with a dog at each end of the towel.  Here are all four of the little Scotties:

How cute are they with their hats?  I love the hillbilly dog!

I don't have a plan for these tea towels.  They'll go in the gift drawer and I'm sure someone will be happy to get them.  Do you ever make things just to make them, or do you always have a plan for what you're doing?

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Not Your Grandma's Crocheted Tea Towel - Submission

I changed my mind at least ten times on what I wanted to do this time, but finally settled on this crochet embellished tea towel that I could hang from my oven handle. 

I started off making my own tea towel.  I used a 100% cotton home dec fabric with colors that match my Fiestaware.  Once washed, this has the feel of a "linen" towel.  I hemmed the edges and even did a mitered corner (fancy me).

I added a crocheted edge to the towel and made a big crocheted flower to sew on one corner.  Behind the flower is a strap with a snap to hang it from the oven handle.  

This is the same concept as the acrylic yarn crocheted towels my grandma always has in her kitchen, just updated (I hope) for the modern kitchen.  A pretty and practical place to wipe your hands as you are making a meal.

I hope you'll vote!

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Stamped & "Painted" Apron - A Challenge Submission

Tea Towel Challenge? Hmmm. I decided to think outside my box for this one, and came up with the idea to take a plain white tea towel, and embellish it with: A STAMP & FABRIC PAINT! After the stamping and painting was all said & done, I was so in love with this little towel, I decided to turn it into an apron. ;)

I'll be back tomorrow with a pictoral / detailed tutorial or explanation of how I made the stamped and painted design on the tea towel. But I bet you can get an idea of the process from the pictures below of what I did. In a nutshell, I took one large stamp and pressed it five times (In different directions) on the tea towel to "decorate" it.

The picture below shows one stamp:

When I was finished with the pink, I decided a pop of orange would be appropriate. So I added several orange dots (with a pencil eraser) throughout.

When I was finished painting, I searched through my neglected collection of woven fabrics (because I've been on a knit fabric kick of late). I was on the hunt for something colorful, not flowery and on the 'modern-ish' side. Enter my Rubix Cube looking fabric I picked up at Joann's on clearance a couple months ago! I fell in love w/ this fabric the minute my eyes found it. So colorful, so catchy!

To turn this embellished tea towel into an apron, I essentially just made a LONG tube of fabric, and sewed it to the top of the apron (I also top stitched the entire tube for stabilization). I wanted it long enough to wrap from front to back, back to the front, and then be able to tie w/ a big side bow. Excellent!

I love how this turned out, and if you do too ... be sure to vote!

ps- will be back tomorrow w/ a tutorial on the painting of the fabric.

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