Simple Kitchen Towel Tutorial

My best friend, Jen, and I have known since we were teenagers. For the last 15 years she has been afflicted with MS. This is not a pretty disease and it has caused Jen great pain. Recently she moved to her new house in our old home town. Since moving she has been decorating her place, mostly through online shopping. Jen doesn't get around too well so she hadn't been able to put up any of her purchased goodies.

During my recent visit home to see Jen I helped her put up drapes in her living room, bedroom and bathroom/laundry room. She did not have anything for her kitchen window - which was screaming for a valance. While talking I told her, "you know, I can whip something up. What do you like for the kitchen?" Her answer was yellow, just like her grandmother always had in her kitchen. I also know that my best friend loves owls. I found the perfect fabric at Fabric.com called Nite Owls - Yellow Sketch.

After ordering a yard of this fabric I thought well what am I going to do with the scraps. The valance is only going to use 20"x40" so that leaves 16" x40". Then the idea to make kitchen towels to match came to mind. With a pack of flour sack kitchen towels from Wal-Mart the idea took shape.

Simple Kitchen Towel - makes a set of 2

Items needed:
1 - flour sack towel
1/8 yard of fabric
thread to match (for a white towel, use white)

Tools needed:
rotary cutter
cutting mat
sewing machine
snipping scissors
ruler

Instructions:
Press the towel for easier cutting. Cut hems off towel on all sides. Once this is done, cut the towel in half so that you end up with two towels that are approximately 13"x26" each. From the fabric cut a 3" x16" strip - you will need two, one for each towel.

Measure from the bottom 3" this will be where the bottom of the fabric strip will go. Take the fabric strip and finger press a small fold so that the raw edges are under the fabric front - do this for the top and bottom of the strip. Now pin the strip down to the towel (the bottom of the strip at least 3" from the raw bottom of the towel.

Take the raw edge at the top and bottom of the towel and fold over twice towards the back, pin and then sew two seams on both the bottom and top. Once you have a double seam on both the top and bottom of the towel then sew the strip to the towel both at top of strip and bottom of strip. Trim the strip sides even with towel. Now fold over the raw edges on both sides, pin and sew. You can do a simple stitched line on both sides or you may do double like the top and bottom. Repeat with the second towel.

Viola - a kitchen towel set of two!

Hope you enjoy. Would love to see your comments about what you made using this tutorial.