I hold this truth for self-evident: you can’t have enough tea towels in your kitchen. … No visit to IKEA without finding me carrying a set of tea towels in my blue bag back home.
They’re a cheap and easy way to bring a bit of change to your kitchen, a light and easy alterable way to try new styles, to respond to moods or seasons.
I am especially fond of those simple blue-white or red-white traditional patterned towels. You can repurpose them in so many ways – turn them into gift wraps, storage pockets, bread baskets, lunch bags, market totes,… Have a look at the various ideas I’ve collected on my Pinterest board towel.frenzy..
But – as you can see on the pictures – you can as well leave them with their intended purpose and do a little bit of customizing.
With some strips of fabric I gave these simple tea towels here a new spiced up retro look. It’s even easier if you use rick racks or ribbon for embellishing tea towels (or napkins). They make a beautiful little gift – although it might be hard not to keep them 😉
How to:
I didn’t use IKEA (Elly or Tekla) towels, cause I found them to be too thin to be weight with some more fabric.
First of all I washed both tea towels and accent fabric to avoid uneven shrinking.
The length of the fabric strips is determined by how much of your tea towel you want to cover. My strips are about 10 cm long on both sides – so I had to cut the three pieces about 22 cm in length ( two sides + seam allowance). Measure the width of your towel and also add 2 cm for seam allowances on both sides.
Fold the fabric strip in half lengthwise, right sides together. Sew along both short sides using a seam allowance of 1 cm. Turn right side out and press. Trim seam allowance. Now stack the bottom of the towel in between, fold in remaining raw edges of fabric strip and pin in place. A iron is quite helpful here. If you have managed this, you’re only left with topstiching all around the strip.
nadel&gabel 