Harvest Kitchen Towel

I made another kitchen towel in my monthly machine embroidery class.  This was our November project:

Our lesson this month was to learn to eliminate parts of designs.  In the class, we learned to eliminate these leaves from the design.  But I kind of liked them, so I left them in.

This was only a two-color design.  The stems were to be the same color as the leaves.  But I wanted my stems brown, so I stopped the machine as it went to the stems and changed my thread to brown.

The leaves are actually cutwork.  Can you see how the centers are cut away?  I have done cutwork before, but I wanted to do it again.  It has been a while.  It's kind of fun.

However, I kind of wish I had left the leaves off.  This towel is pretty loosely woven, and the fibers are fairly thick, so in one spot, which you can maybe see in the photo here, they didn't all get caught in the satin stitching.  So, I'm afraid the towel will develop and uncontrolled hole here.  I even satin stitched over it twice....it was worse before.  I think this was the wrong fabric to try cut work on.  You can even see that the satin stitching didn't cover the cut areas as well as I'd like.  I don't think it's a problem with the design.  I think I should have done this on a finer weave of fabric.  One gal was doing this on linen napkins, and it was absolutely stunning.  That would have been a better choice.  It may have also helped if I had put stabilizer on top of the towel as well as below the towel when it stitched.  But this class is about learning for me, so this was good for me to learn firsthand.

The designs are Anita Goodesign Autumn Cutwork.  There are some beautiful acorns and oak leaves in the design set.  I would love to do those on some napkins.  Sigh.  If I just had more time!  I will admit, though, these designs took a lot less time to stitch out than my previous towels.  These would be pretty fast, easy hostess gifts.  It would be wise of me to make a small stash to have on hand.....

We also used our wing needle again and some heirloom stitching to finish the bottom.  We unpicked the little double folded, 1/4" hem that was in the towel (again, I was using a really cheap, premade flour sack style towel), refolded it to be about a 2" hem, and sewed this nice finish.  I really like that.  It's so professional and polished looking!

Here's a closer shot of the stitching.  I don't know if you can really see it well, because I used matching thread, but this is the "ladder stitch," I think they call it.  There is a stitch that goes across, between the two lines of stitching.  It's quite nice.

Next month we will be putting a ruffle on a towel.  The sample is on a terrycloth towel.  I need to decide if I'll do a terrycloth towel or keep with the flour sacks.  I have never done a terrycloth towel.  In the spirit of expanding my skills, maybe I should....

Until next time,

Comments

[Sue]

Stephanie! Just beautiful.. And I really also love the nice touch with the wing needle. Those sure come in handy.

You are an impressive crafter!

[carolld]

Ahhh, you are making me wish I had an embroidery machine. Your towel is lovely! I do have a wing needle but have never used it. Thanks for the picture of how it is supposed to look like. Maybe I'll try that.

[Linda in Calif.]

Very pretty. Sounds like a fun class. I think I would do the terry to expand my skills. And once you explained the "ladder" stitch I could see it - very nice!

[Cindy]

WOW!! This is absolutely GORGEOUS!!! You did a beautiful job on this! I love it!!

[Donna]

Love the new towel with the pumpkins. I adore the look of using a wing needle. I don't use mine enough.
Hugs,
Donna