Cute Kitchen Towel Makeover

My Grandma used to have kitchen towels with crocheted toppers.  They were always close at hand in her kitchen, hanging from the oven door, or cabinet knob.  Tired of constantly having my kitchen towels disappear from my kitchen, and since my crochet skills are nearly nil, I created my own quick sew version. 

I dare the kitchen towel gnomes to try to run off with these!

All you need is a kitchen towel, a scrap of coordinating fabric, some elastic and my simple pattern.

First, cut your kitchen towel in half, crosswise.  Each standard size towel can make two towels with toppers.

Using my pattern, cut two pieces of your coordinating fabric.

Cut a piece of elastic approximately 4 inches long.  Fold it in half, and decide how big you need your loop to be.

Mark your elastic at the desired length, and line that mark up 1/2” from the top edge of the right side of one piece of fabric.  Make sure the raw edges of your elastic loop are oriented toward the edge, and the loop part is pinned down in place. 

Then, having the elastic loop pinned inside, pin your two fabric pieces, right sides together.  Leave the straight bottom edge unpinned.  This won’t be stitched until later.

Using a 1/2” seam allowance, stitch all the way around the piece, stitching slowly and carefully across the elastic.   (Like my super nifty blue painter’s tape seam guide?  Nothing but the best will do for this gal.)

To make things extra secure, I backstitched a couple of times over the elastic.   Then trim the seams to approximately 1/4”.

Before turning right side out, turn up the open edge 1” and press.

Then turn right side out and press.

Using your fingers, loosely gather the cut edge of your kitchen towel.

Tuck the gathered edges into the fabric topper.  You may have to fuss with this a bit to get it looking right.   When it looks perfect to you, pin them together.

Slowly stitch across the edge of your topper, making sure to catch the underside topper edge as well.   I used a wide zig-zag, but you could use whatever stitch you like.

All done!  Your easy towel topper is ready to use.  Now, I’m off to make another one with the other half of the towel!

Did your Grandma have crocheted towel toppers like mine did?

Linking up to some of my favorite fun blogs.

Love giveaways?  Link up your giveaway or enter other great giveaways at my new weekly feature:  Sunday Sweepstakes Linkup!