Halloween Towel

I have another small finish to report today!  :-)

Last week, I took another machine embroidery class.  My local shop is having this monthly class, where we do a themed towel and then they show us lots of ideas for other ways we could use the designs.  It's kind of fun, and the projects are small and accomplishable.  It's getting me to use my embroidery machine more, which was one of my goals for participation.  Another thing is that each month, they teach us a new skill.  Last month it was hemstitching with a wing needle.  This month, it was how to insert this little bit of fabric on the towel.  (The fabric is the little black and orange striped piece.)

I had gotten the embroidery done in class, but I didn't get the rest of the towel assembled.  That was a quick and satisfying finish over the weekend!

Here, you can see it's a little flange of fabric.  We cut the towel 4" from the bottom hemed edge.  I took this 3"-wide piece of fabric and folded it in half.  I lined it up with the cut edge of the towel and laid the other cut edge on top, lining up all the cut edges.  I sewed a 1/4" seam allowance then flipped it open.  I topstitched along the top of the black fabric to hold it down (all the other seam alloances were going up).  Then, I folded the bottom edge of the towel (which was the original finished bottom of the towel) up and toward the back to cover the raw edges.  And I top stitched that down.  (You can see the top stitching in the top photo.)  Then, I hand stitched the sides closed to enclose the raw edges on the sides of the black fabric.

Here is a close-up shot of the embroidery.  You can, perhaps, see the little line of white stitching where I sewed the folded edge to cover the raw edges on the back.  I used all Floriani embroidery threads to sew this.  I love Floriani thread for machine embroidery.  My machine loves it, too.  I rarely have thread breakage, and it has a nice sheen to it, despite the fact that it is polyester and not rayon.  (I prefer polyester thread for machine embroidery.)  Love it.

The design is by Patrick Lose.  I tried to find it online, but I couldn't.  I think it's an older design.  There are other holiday designs in the set, too.  But I mostly just liked the Halloween ones.  I think these cats are cute.

I was so busy last week, I barely made it to class.  I grabbed my machine, threads, and towel, and off I went.  I didn't even have any fabric to use for the insertion.  The shop I do embroidery at carries just a tiny bit of fabric.  This black fabric with the orange bats was the only one they had left that really went with my towel.  (They had taught a daytime version of this class the week before, and those gals cleaned them out.)  At first, both the gal who taught the class and I sort of made a face at this fabric.  We didn't think it was all that cute.  But I said it would do.  It's just a towel, after all.  But now that it's finished, I am quite happy with the fabric choice.  I think it looks great with the embroidery.

You might remember last month, I had some problems with stabilizing my design, and I had a lot of pulling on the design.  I did a better job stabilizing it this month, and it turned out much better.

I keep doing my embroidery on a "flour sack" style towell.  One gal at the last class was doing it on a colored, terrycloth handtowel.  Maybe I'll give that a try sometime.  I think I have an off-white flour sack towel I'll use for November, though.  Something for me to think about....

Next month, we learn how to eliminate pieces of a design to only use a portion of it on the towel.  That will be good for me to learn as well!

Well, I'm off to another hectic day.  It's only 7:30 am, and I've been up for 2.5 hours working already!  But I've gotten a lot done already, so that's good.

Have a wonderful day!

Until next time,

Comments

[Maggie Szafranski]

Sounds like an awesome class! Learning great techniques!

[carolld]

Cute towel. Wish I had an embroidery machine. Looks like a lot of fun!

[Sue]

That's a cute towel. I used to have an embroidery machine but didn't use it much. When I see things like this, I think I should have kept it as there are some really good uses for one.

[Thimbleanna]

Very, very cute Mama Pea! You're lucky to have such a class -- we moved right after I purchased my machine so I had to learn the hard way. LOVE that design!

[Jana]

Super cute! I too have been up for a couple of hours, but I haven't gotten too much done. Time to get off the computer and get to work!

[Doris]

I adore this, love my kitties and I love Halloween! The flange is a very nice touch...

[Deb]

It's so funny that you would post this today because I was just on a website looking at . . . tea towels! What a great idea to take a class that uses your embroidery machine. Mine is really neglected - one of my goals in the next year is to take advantage of what I already have - maybe tea towels are on the horizon.

[liveacolorfullife]

Oh this is just adorable, Stephanie!! I don't have an embroider machine so I guess you will have to make a towel for me (hint hint...)

[Theresa]

I love the towel. What a great idea for classes, I love my embroidery machine but it hasn't seen much action in the last few months.

[Linda in Calif.]

Oh this is just adorable and I love the way you did the trim - easy peasy.

[Lynn]

I love those cats! They remind me of our little Spooky Boo (who is sleeping in my lap right now). What a great embroidery class idea! I'm going to suggest that at my shop. A towel is doable and fairly inexpensive to make.

[Carla]

Cute, cute, and so professional looking! Great job!

[terriaw]

Wow, what a fun project! Another great way to use stitchery in such a functional, practical way. Need to add this to my ever-growing list too.