Thursday, July 19, 2012

DIY Decorated Dishtowels (& More Spoons!)

My sister turned 23 last weekend and she chose to come up from DC and celebrate with us!  I was so excited!  She graduated last year and is living in her first apartment with her old college roommate.  I'm getting a little nostalgic for my early 20s, so let's move on.  I wanted to make her some cheery accessories to use in her kitchen and she mentioned a while back that she's going with a yellow color scheme.

I made some dishtowels for my father a while back and wanted to do something similar with cute yellow fabric.  The problem was, I couldn't find any yellow fabric I loved.  I went to a local independent fabric store that usually has a great assortment, but their yellow selection was severely lacking.  Time to switch up the plan a bit.  I grabbed some yellow rick-rack and a quarter yard of a yellow & blue striped fabric.


Both dishtowels were very simple.  First, I cut my rick-rack so that it would run the length of the towel. Then I folded over one side and put in a bunch of stitches so it wouldn't fray.


Then I flipped it over and sewed a straight line through the rick-rack right across the length of the towel.  Then I folded over the rick-rack and stitched through it on the other side (again, to stop fraying).


With the rick-rack towel done, I cut my length of fabric in half and folded so it covered one end of my second towel on both sides.  I ironed the whole thing in place (including the hem, folded under the fabric)...


...and then started to sew the fabric on.


Once the fabric was on, I sewed another line of stitches towards the top of the fabric to help it keep its shape.



I wrapped up the dishtowels and paired them with three bright yellow spoons (similar to these and these).  Fun & homemade gift for a loved one!  Happy birthday, Jules... stay homey!


5 comments:

  1. These have definitely brightened up my kitchen! Thanks again for a great gift!

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  2. I LOVE THESE! The last pic is my favorite...so bright and lemony :)

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  3. Hey Caitlin - not sure if you've posted this somewhere else, but do you have any suggestions for a beginner's sewing machine? I took 'sewing' in high school but haven't touched one since and the number and type on Amazon is overwhelming. Thanks! :)

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    1. Hi Sarah - I use a Brother CS6000i that I ordered from Amazon. It's "sew affordable" (according to the description) and has held up really well to my use (I even made a quilt with it - stay tuned). It's nothing fancy but is exactly what I need for now. The only thing it doesn't do that I would like is serging (at least, I can't figure out how to do it) and letter monogramming. Good luck!

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