2 Things to do with Tea Towels

Some little bits of sewing, for some very lovely ladies (one of whom is behind this nice site). I like vintage tea towels. And I like the idea of a wearable tea towel, like instead of dripping your wet hands all over the kitchen while you look for that balled up towel you just had, voila, it's there, attached to your person! (Uh, but I still keep making them and sending them away, so I haven't actually tried it myself, and still drip all over the kitchen.)

The idea is simple. Sew a two inch or sew border to one of the long sides of your tea towel; hem those short ends in first. Leave the ends open for now. Now sew some long skinny ties (so that the wearer can wrap them around herself and tie in front, no matter what her size). I usually cut my fabric about 2.5", iron it in half the long way, sew a 1/4" seam, so that I have something about an inch wide. Now you can take a long dowel or something and turn it right side out, press, and then topstitch if you feel like it. SO Easy. So FUN to make and gift, and so NICE to see those tea towels out there.

Oh and if you want to make these and sell them all over etsy, fine. Go ahead, make a million on tea towel aprons! Trade them, swap them, sell them, I don't care. Just have fun while you're doing it. I sort of hate it when people put things online and then think they can just hang on to the idea forever. OK, fine, if you want to hoard your good idea, here's a small tip for free: don't put it online at all.

OK, here's another free idea you can do with a tea towel or even a terry cloth hand towel: make it into a simple over-the-head apron for a small person. This is great with terry cloth, especially for helpful small hands who might like to do dishes with you.

With just a small amount of hand-sewing, you can tack those corners down. Then machine sew one long tie, optional topstitching. Or just use clothesline! The great thing is it can fit over those big heads with no fussing.