Handmade gift giving, an easy Tutorial!


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Hey there! How is the holiday season treating you so far? I hope you are not feeling overwhelmed with it quite yet - it's too soon! I just try to take one day at a time, and do things now, rather than waiting til later. Somehow, most things manage to get done!

I thought I'd offer a quick and very easy tutorial on an easy-to-make handmade gift; kitchen hand towels! Everyone uses them, and everyone is always up for having a few that are especially cute. Plus, they make wonderful hostess gifts, or girl-friend gifts!

As you may know, I am a big lover of Spoonflower, a special online shop where you can upload your designs and make them into fabric. What fun! Well, you can also shop from about a million other fabric designers, and find some fantastic art fabric you'd never find in your local fabric store. Take a look at this fantastic print I stumbled upon... I knew I just had to make something with these fun designs:
Designcrafty's 4 fat quarters pattern can be found here. *Update: Oh no... this pattern is no longer available :o( For an equally fun Spoonflower site, visit DennisTheBadger's page: here, or click here to see a page of kitchen inspired fabrics.
I ordered the yardage in the Linen/Cotton blend, which is a wonderful weight, just right for tea towels. I cut the 4 quarters apart, double folded under each edge, and ironed flat.

I used some of the salvaged edge fabric to make a hanging tab by folding the cut edges into the middle and machine stitching the open edge closed. (*Note: you can also use white Bias Tape for this step, which means no extra folding and ironing... bonus!) I then cut this into 4" long pieces, and pinned them into the backside corners so they would be sewn in once I stitched the towels up.

1-2-3, easy as pie! Well, easier in fact... once I got rolling, I could make a tea towel from start to finish in about 15-20 minutes.

Fold them in a cute way, and tie a sweet ribbon around them, and they are all ready for gift giving. Now, you are free to go visit with your girlfriends and enjoy that cup of tea :o)


Happiest of the holidays to you!

x, Val