From My House to Yours...

Happy Holidays, and all the Blessings of the Season.

From the Dishtowel Factory

The academic year puts a major crimp in my holiday spirit. This is finals week and I've got piles of grading, so my decorating is minimal, and most of my shopping is done by ordering on line. What did I ever do in the days before Amazon.com?

But I also managed to make some dish towels to give as gifts with jars of the jam I made this year.

You probably don't need a tutorial, but cut some cute fabric into 5 inch strips the width of a purchased dish towel. Sew a length of rick rack on the right side of one or both long edges.

Press the hem back so that half of the rick rack shows on the front side. Pin this panel 4 inches or so from the hem of a purchased dishtowel. Fold the short edges under so that the panel is even with the sides of the towel and top stitch it down on all sides. Here are some examples of what I made:

Isn't this cowboy fabric cute?

...And food prints are fun.

I think this Chinese print looks nice on these black and white towels.

I made these towels from yardage, which I later decided was too much work. The dish rag, however, is a very fast project. Cut a 9.5" square and apply a fabric binding just like you would for a quilt.




I made these 4 this morning in an hour before I had to leave for work.

There's no rest for the wicked.

Pillowcase Quilt

Debra was very kind and quilted my pillowcase quilt for me. This was the quilt I made in part with fabric harvested from thrift store pillowcases. I posted about the construction of this project here, here, and here. Of course no sooner did I get this quilt out of the box, that my cats had to take turns sitting on it to make sure meets their high standards.

Debra did a lovely job quilting this utility quilt. I bound it with my favorite neutral: red, and Debra gave me this pretty blue backing fabric. She was very clever about recycling a thermal blanket for the batting. It's wonderfully drapey and snugly.


I decided to take the quilt to a bed to snap some photos, and Fatty volunteered to be the spokes-model.


Can you tell that she thinks this is her bed?


When I was done with the pictures, I had to wrestle her to get the quilt back. Cats are like that.