Sunday, January 17, 2010

Potholder/ Towel Tutorial

As I had promised a few minutes ago I made a tutorial of my potholder kitchen towel project. This is my first tutorial and in fact this project is so easy even a cave man could do it and it doesn't even need a tutorial. I just wanted to make a tutorial to say that I made one ;-)
Now follow along.......


Use a whole kitchen towel. It can be a towel with a design on each half and that will make a reversible towel. Or it can be a towel with the design only on one half.






A potholder with a hook on it. If it has no hook, I don't know what you would do!!! Just kidding, I am sure that you would be able to come up with some smashing idea for a button loop!! My potholder is solid black. You can, however use a potholder with a design like the rooster shown in my previous post but the towel will not be reversible.




Find the very center of your towel lengthwise and width wise. My towel had a nice little center line down the middle where the design was mirrored on the other side! Thanks Mrs. Towelmaker for helping out!





Find the center of your potholder. Also my potholder had a right and wrong side because of the care label and I wanted the label to be on the inside of my towel when it was hung so this label didn't show. So many decisions.....






Go to your sewing machine (If your dog did not chew the power cord on your machine, that is..........ah hum....Terri! ....is that Terri Griswald? This story just reminded me of the Griswalds Christmas vacation for some reason...I love you Terri!!) and run a gathering line of stitches down the center of the towel with your longest stitch length.

Gather the stitches by pulling on the bobbin thread of this line of stitches and gently tugging and easing the towel so that it fits the width of your potholder. Pin in place with right sides together. Go take a coffee break because you deserve it now as you have worked way too hard thus far!


Now run a straight stitch across the towel and potholder with both pieces opened so as not to catch them in your seam.
This is what the back side looks like stitched down.




Trim your threads.

Another look at the backside after stitching and trimming.

Sew on, by hand or machine, any sort of matching button that will fit in the loop on the outside of the opposite side of the potholder. Hang on your oven handle, kitchen cabinet drawer pulls or if you are fortunate enough to have one, your Hoosier cabinet drawer pull!!!!!!! Now go refresh that cup of coffee that you didn't drink because you couldn't wait to get this project finished. Grab a piece of cheesecake while you are at it!


Then sit back and sip coffee and eat cheesecake while admiring your new kitchen towel! You deserve a break now!














7 comments:

Sage said...

Congrats on your first tutorial!! Those are cute! I may have to make a few of those for xmas next year!!

OurCrazyFarm said...

You never cease to amaze me with all your talents my dear friend! I have the coffee part down, now I will have to save this amazing tutorial until the cord or the dog gets replaced so I can make me some of these!

Yes... to make some for Christmas presents would be great! There's only 11 months left until Christmas you know... it comes the same day every year my friends tell me so I will have no excuses this year.

Now I am going to have to check out the Griswalds Christmas vacation to see if you are mocking me, or maybe there really was a Terri Griswald??? You wouldn't mock me, now, would you?? Right after I figure out how to sew buttons on with my sewing machine I'll go do that! Terri

Amy @ Keep'n The SunnySide said...

Love it.. a project even I (with little to no sewing skills) can do.

Unknown said...

Oh Thank You my friends!! (I am taking a bow here) I want to see pictures of all of your towels too!!

Leslie said...

So easy a cave man can do it huh!!! We'll see about that. Does a cave man know how to thread the sewing machine, if he does he can come show me a thing or two!!! I love it and will be by to pick mine up soon!!!

TxFarmhouse said...

You go girl with the tutorial...how awesome. I've seen those (and have some) with the crocheted hangers but I can't crochet to save my life so this is handy. Thanks for sharing.
Berte

Anonymous said...

OMG so funny I just bought this towel at Kmart and made one of these and my friend said where did you see it. So I looked for directions and found yours thanks so much.