Cloth Kitchen Towels (with Tutorial!)
For anyone who knows me, I am very keen on eco-friendly projects to help with the environment. Last year I made some reusable kitchen rolls using some fat quarters and some new towels that I had in my cupboard that someone bought us as a house warming present 6 years ago! They have been absolutely brilliant! There were a few things that I wanted to change about the overall appearance of the kitchen roll after having it for over a year. It was quite effective using towels but the Aldi fat quarters really didn’t last long, they looked really grubby and I got fed up with having to snap them all together with the poppers. My husband had a genius idea (after I made my new ones and trying to stick poppers on them!). He also got fed up with having to do the poppers for me as I suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome. His idea was to use buttonholes and to hang them up, so rather than having to snap them together and have them on a roll, I will just have them hanging up as a grab and use type of kitchen roll, which would work better for us as a family. I think I will offer both options on my Etsy store once I list these for sale.
I thought I’d write a tutorial on how I make them for anyone who is interested in becoming more eco-friendly!
Materials needed:-
Approx 1 metre of Organic bamboo towelling ( I love this stuff! it’s perfect for so many projects and it lasts for so long, washes beautifully and is great for the environment as its made from the bamboo tree, It has antibacterial properties and regulates temperatures too.
1 metre of 100% cotton, you could use fat quarters or any type of fabric really.
Thread and sewing machine.
Rotary cutter or scissors and a ruler and a frixon pen or chalk.
Step 1) This tool is awesome my husband bought it for me for my birthday last year and I’ve only just got around to using it as I didn’t have a big enough cutting mat big enough to use it. (sorry went off on a tangent there!). The first step is to cut out 10″ x 10″ squares of cotton and 12 x 10″ x 10″ squares of organic bamboo.( I make 12 towels).
cutting the organic bamboo is a little tricky as it is a little bit stretchy so does tend to move a little bit. I am also a little lazy and cut two layers at a time.
Step 2) Pin or clip all sides of the cotton and bamboo ( Right sides together as we are going to use the turn it out method)
Step 3) Sew all the way around leaving a gap about 1-1.5″ wide so that you can turn it right side out.
Step 4) Turn it right side out and you can either iron now or top stitch, I decided to top stitch and then iron but that’s just my preference.
Step 5) iron! My least favourite part!
How beautiful do they look? This cotton is called ” Pastel Paste” by Freedom fabrics. You can buy a whole range of them over at www.littlefabza.co.uk . You can also pick up this amazing organic bamboo there too!
You can add poppers which is what I started to do, then my husband decided he wanted buttonholes instead! Which is what I shall be doing tomorrow! You can add 2 poppers or 3, I found adding two wasn’t quite enough so I think 3 would work better!
and that’s it! I will post a picture of the finished product once I’ve done my buttonholes!