Tea Towel Sewing Project

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Fun beginner Project

This holiday season I made up a set up of adorable tea towels. I used my own fabric prints, printed from SpoonFlower, and hemmed them up in an evening. They may be small but they make a significant gift for someone special.


Project Type: Sewing Only

Difficulty: Beginner
If I can do it anyone can. This was only my third sewing project after a couple of table runners and two scrunchies. I will admit it started off rough and I know I did not have matching thread, but it was on purpose. Having a matching thread would hide the mistakes better. By the 3rd and 4th towel, I finally had it down and felt more confident.

Get this exact Holiday Set

I made the set available to you. You may go in Spoonflower and order this exact set to get started on your own project:

  • Click the link below.
    Old Time Holiday Watercolor Truck Tea Towel Set of 4 (All different)
  • Set the fabric type to Canvas Linen or Performance Linen (must be linen to work).
  • Set the amount to 1 yard for perfect measurement.
  • Check out (Get extra savings when there’s a sale! Spoonflower has sales constantly.
  • Interested in more, follow my Etsy shop for notifications. More sets are on the way for purchase.
  • See below for sewing the edges.

Project Type: Make your own design & Sew

Difficulty: Intermediate to Advanced
For this project, you will need to know Photoshop and have a method for creating a design or pattern.


Steps for making your own set

  • Make a design. You do not have to make a repeating pattern for this project. You could plop in essentially anything. Including scanned in recipes, designs made in Procreate (set on a large document size in Procreate 4000px x 4000px or higher), scanned in watercolored work, etc.
  • Access the template for one yard that I created, here
  • Add your designs in the designated pattern areas. Make sure to rotate your designs 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
  • Change the background trim color area. This is wide enough to fold completely back and hide to the back or to leave a portion as a border.
  • Watch the video below for a detailed step-by-step.
  • See below for sewing the edges.


Sew it up

  • Wash the fabric gently. Iron it out once dry. Normally with cotton it will shrink on you so this step is important for clothing. I forgot to wash it (whoops) and it was fine. I did a wash after the towels were finished and they were fine.
  • Cut all of the pieces apart. When cut evenly it leaves a 1.5 inch border all around each one.
  • I liked the look of half of the border on the front and the other half on the back so I folded the edges down 1/2 inch, then again 1/2 inch. This left 1/2 inch of the border showing on both sides.
  • Note: If you want to leave a larger border on the front, fold 3/8 inch, then again 3/8 inch.
  • Ironing it flat will ensure that it stays, linen is really thick.
  • Pin the edges all around.
  • You can do lay flat corners, but I was not successful at this, so I just folded them in squared and turned the fabric when I got to the corners.
  • I also add a small length of stretchy cord to the upper right side for hanging.
  • I did test out using 1 straight regular stitch vs triple straight stitch and there was a significant difference. I recommend the fancier triple straight stitch. I used the basic settings about 3 stitch length and 3 for the tension.

I’ve got some work to do on keeping it straight and neat but it still came out great.


Mock-up

I don’t want to do a project…just give me the mock-up. No problemo. Click

This is a fun little photoshop file. You only need to double-click the yellow highlight layer thumbnail and replace the pattern inside. Save that smart layer (.psb file) and go back over to the main file. Your design should update. That’s it. If you need help please see my youtube channel for help videos. All of my mock-up files are in the same format.

STortDesigns YouTube Channel

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