Christmas Hand Towels

I have a confession to make.  I have a sewing/altering business on the side.  I’m up to my eyeballs in sewing for two weddings and Christmas gift sewing for others.  On top of that, I’ve got all of my own Christmas sewing to do along with all the other holiday busyness.  Oh, and I have five kids.  Did I mention that?

So, since we only had about ten followers last Christmas, I am going to repost my Christmas posts from last year.  I hope you enjoy them.  This post for Christmas Hand Towels was originally posted on December 7, 2011.

Christmas Hand Towels

…for the oven!

These little cuties will add some holiday cheer to your kitchen and keep your hands clean at the same time!  They also make great neighbor or teacher gifts!

Wanna know what I love best about these hand towels?  My 17-month-old can’t take them off the oven, and I’ve always got a hand towel “handy!”  Yes.  I am a dork.  Thank you for noticing!  :)

I actually inherited this pattern from my husband’s grandma who passed away earlier this year.  I had gotten a set for my wedding almost 12 years ago.  Only these were crocheted with a nasty mustard color with acrylic yarn.  The towels themselves were brown and mustard colored.  I didn’t love them.  Unless you were the one who gave them to me!  Then they were my fave!!  I didn’t like how the yarn washed up when it got dirty.  But, I used those bad boys until they were hanging by a thread.  Why?  Because they were practical.  When I found this pattern in Grandma’s stash, I was stoked.  Now I can make all kinds of cute oven hand towels with yummy fabric!  Sa-weet!

Okay.  Enough rambling.  Ready to find out how to make these adorable yet practical hand towels?  Me too.

You will need:

*two cute dish towels and two fat quarters. 

This will make four hand towels.  But, you can make as many as you’d like.  These would be awesome gifts for a bridal shower, Mother’s Day (oooh!  with your kids' handprints on them!), a wedding, birthday, Veteran’s Day, all the holidays, the possibilities are endless!

*buttons, scissors, thread, ric-rac, and any other embellishments

Cut your dish cloths in half to make two equal sized hand towels.  Oops.  I didn’t get a good picture of this.  Let me see if I can make one up in Paint really fast.

Okay.  That wasn’t so bad.  After you’ve cut your dish cloth, run a basting stitch along the raw edge of the towel.

Now gather it up.

It’s time to cut out the tops of the hand towels.  Grandma’s pattern didn’t scan so well.  It’s very old.  So, lucky you!  You get another one of my Paint masterpieces!  :)

Pin the gathered raw edge of the dish cloth to the bottom (flat) side of the fabric.  Make sure the right side of the fabric is facing up.

Sew it into place.  Take the second fabric piece and line it up with bottom part and the right sides together.  Stitch around it 1/2 inch in from the edge of the fabric.  Be sure to leave an opening to pull your towel through.

Clip your corners so that the fabric will press flatter.

Pull the towel through and use the scissors to get your corners perfect.  More on that here.  Press the fabric and top stitch around it.  Be sure to close up that little hole.

Add a button hole and a button.  Did you know you can sew a button on with your sewing machine?  Read about it here.

Don’t judge my ugly button hole.  The button hole attachment for my sewing machine is broken.  So, I had to improvise.  Here’s how I did it:

Measure your button on the fabric and draw a “button hole” onto the fabric with a fabric marker.

Not as pretty, but still functional.  Maybe I’ll have to ask Santa for a new sewing machine!  :)

Feel free to embellish your towels with ric-rac, ribbon, or whatever else.  Wouldn’t these look super cute with a ruffle on the bottom made from the same fabric as the top?  I think so, too.  In fact, I would have done that if I had a serger.  Raw terry cloth edges are messy, messy, messy!  I guess the serger is one more thing I can add to my Santa list!  :)

Well, there you have it!

  Adorable hand towels that are perfect for gifting, using, washing, and decorating! 

I actually tried a pointed top rather than a rounded top on one of them, and decided I liked the rounded top better.  It’s all up to you.  I will be using these as gifts, and I found this cute little story to go along with the towels:

The Towel

At first glance, one looks at a hand towel and thinks, “Great, a towel, I need a new one.  The old ones are sure getting worn out.”  Have we ever stopped to think that for years, even thousands of years, the towel has not only been used to dry our hands and face, but for many other purposes?

Take for example, the mother who wipes the tears of a little child to soothe the physical and emotional hurt; the physician who binds the wound of a bleeding patient; the woman in her home wiping her hands as she moves from task to task; the weary traveler who wipes his sweated brow.
Remember the quiet night in a humble stable many years ago.  Mary, filled with wonder, lovingly wrapped her new baby, the Savior, in swaddling clothes.

Perhaps the most significant use of the towel was about two thousand years ago when our loving Brother took an ordinary towel in His hand and dried the feet of his disciples only hours before His crucifixion.  Yes, the towel is a handy item with a multitude of uses, but it also has deep symbolic meaning when seen in the hands of the Savior doing a work of kindness for his fellow men.

Please take this towel, knowing it is given with love, and do works of goodness with it, as the Savior worked goodness with His so many years ago.

~Author Unknown

Well, that’s it!  Go make one for everyone you know!!