Hanging towels

Hanging towels are always extremely useful, I think. I used to cut hand towels in half and crochet towel toppers onto each half, so that I could hang them on drawer pulls for easy hand drying, especially in the kitchen. We used to keep one at the sink and one on the refrigerator door at all times. But as much as I enjoyed crocheting, the resulting towel toppers just didn't look all that pretty. A few months back, I started thinking about figuring out a sewing pattern. And then Gelbean came up with a hanging towel tutorial! Since then, I've made a ton! These make great gifts - small, pretty, and useful! I've started giving them for birthdays, holidays, and thank-yous - basically anytime I need a small gift.

This was my prototype: I used scraps and a towel I had hanging around. I also tested out my Singer vintage buttonholer to make the buttonhole!

The Beatles towels were part of a care package for a friend (a Beatles nut!), and the Nemo towel was part of a thank-you gift to the friend who took care of my dog for a few weeks (the one who requested the dog housecoat - her bathroom is decorated in fish). This was when I started interfacing the cotton fabric when making the toppers (I don't interface the flannel).

This is quite the batch! I had more Beatles towels ready to go but hadn't finished them yet, because there was no need. However, since I was working on the chili peppers, I finished them all. I had half a yard of chili peppers fabric, and it made 6 towels. I think that's pretty typical if the print is nondirectional. Directional prints will likely not yield quite as many. I also decided that I would try out my snap press on these. I like the way it turned out! (And it's definitely faster!) The chili peppers were purchased as thank-yous to my advisor and to the stats buddy who was so essential to my thesis. I just mailed my stats buddy's towels to her.

The Illini flannel was leftover from a pillowcase, and I have still more to finish - I just ran out of towels and wanted some to be orange towels. The brown towels are owl-wing fabric - my grandmother loves owls, and these are for her birthday. I wanted to find fabric that had the whole owl, but no such luck. And these were already going to be late, so I wasn't going to wait. I have two more of these, as well. And the cupcakes are also part of her birthday present. I have one more cupcake towel to make, but again, I ran out of towels. I mailed the two owl towels and two of the cupcake towels as the birthday gift.

And then these travel towels are for my friend who loves to travel. It's Nurses' Day today, and I usually send her a new scrub shirt, but I can't find the one that I finished before the move. And I didn't realize that until yesterday. So I whipped up these towels and mailed them. I think she'll be pretty pleased! I have plenty more of that fabric, and I bought another grey towel as well as a light teal one that should match the fabric perfectly.

I also use these in bathrooms, as my little guy can reach them without pulling the whole towel down (which is good, because he never puts the towels back up!). I'm really liking the snap closure now, instead of taking more time to make buttonholes and hand-sew buttons on. These work great! I'm quite certain there will be many more hanging towels coming from my machine!