How to: customise tea towels
Tea towels don’t have to be dull!
Add a pop of colour and personality to your kitchen with bespoke tea towels. You can easily jazz up a boring tea towel by adding a strip of bright fabric. Take it one step further and add some embroidery too.
This is a great project if you struggle to find homewares that match your unique style. You can also use fabrics and colours that match your home. These make the perfect gift for the foodie in your life too!
Materials needed
- Tea towel – we used one that measures 50 x 70cm*
- 1 x fabric strip for front panel 55 x 16cm**
- 1 x fabric for back panel 55 x 18cm
- 1 x contrast strip 55 x 5cm
- Matching sewing thread
*you’ll be cutting approx. 15-20cm off the bottom of the towel, so feel free to upcycle one from your kitchen that’s got a stain on it!
**you can use any fabric you like, but we would advise using a cotton or an absorbent fabric that can be washed repeatedly.
Equipment needed
- Sewing machine
- Rotary cutter, mat and ruler
- Pins
- Point turner
How to
Step 1
Pin and sew the contrast strip to the front panel. Sew along the long side. Press the seam towards the contrast strip.
Step 2
Trim 15 – 20cm off the bottom edge of the tea towel. Centre the unsewn edge of the contrasting strip on the trimmed edge of the towel – the panel will extend 1.5cm beyond both sides of the towel. Pin and sew.
Step 3
Along one of the long edges of the back panel, fold 1cm to the wrong side and press. Sew down close to the fold.
Step 4
Lay the back panel on the front panel, right sides facing, and raw edges aligned. Pin all around the raw edges and sew.
Step 5
Trim the corners and turn. Use a point turner to get the corners neat and sharp.
Step 6
Pin the folded and sewn edge of the back panel in place – it should overlap the seam between the contrast and the tea towel with 5mm. Top stitch from the right side, on the edge of the contrast – it will catch the folded edge of the back panel.
As you can see from the images, we’ve also added some cute cups embroidery to the bottom of the tea towel. You could also add hand embroidery if you don’t own a Brother embroidery machine (yet ;P).
