Christmas is over, but I have started for the one coming up. I've joined the gift of the month club on my quilting forum and I'm doing my gifts one at a time, once a month.
I have the greatest plans to make 7 embellished tea towels for the girls in the doctor's office. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find cotton tea towels? I checked Bed, Bath and Beyond (B, B & B in my house) and all they had were those micro fibre things. I hate micro fibres. I finally found some at Home Outfitters at the far end of town. I bought a 3 pack to get started and start I did.
This is one of them. I can use two from the package. 100% cotton. I love the feel of these.
I decided to do a snowman embellishment as that can be left out for the entire winter. I have this one Nancy Halvorsen book that has the best snowman for this job. It is actually suppose to be the "O" in Noel, but I'm dropping the n, e and l.
I washed the towel, then pressed it. Cotton tends to crease, so I spritzed it with water, then with spray starch and steam press. The wrinkles were gone. It works like a charm every time.
I laid the cut out fusible web on to the tea towel to make sure it fit before I proceeded with pressing the web onto the appropriate fabric.
It fits.
Then I auditioned fabrics having problems with what I thought would work. They didn't. They faded away as if they weren't even there. I choose these.............golds and greens and I know they will work because they "pop" off the fabric.
I fused all the pieces together on a pressing sheet (1st photo) and then applied the whole thing directly to the towel. After that was done I sat
at the sewing machine and did the blanket stitch around the whole thing. When that was finished I added the embellishments................the snowflake, the holly, the eyes and the nose. I glue everything on. I take the hook off the back of the buttons with a pair of side cutters so it will sit flat. I glue on the eyes............they are mini buttons I found at Michaels and the nose is a wooden heart painted orange.
I intend to wrap the girls gifts in these. Two butter tarts for sure and whatever else comes to mind in December. Only a few to go, but I have the towels in stock now..............not the same ones, but close enough.