Vintage Style Kitchen Towel Challenge

So how would you all like another challenge? I know some of my readers are working on other projects but this one should be quick and hopefully, fun to do!

Towels are one of my favorite things to stitch! I hang them on the door of my Hoosier cabinet and change them with the holidays and seasons. And I make of them for gifts too!

Ok, here's the criteria:

Make a vintage style towel either from scratch or using a purchased dishtowel. I don't recommend terrycloth. I think cotton is easier to work with but I'll leave that up to you.

You can do embroidery, either by designing your own pattern or you can use an iron-on transfer design such as Aunt Martha's. You're welcome to use vintage patterns too like I do with my vintage Vogart collection!

If you prefer, you can do applique either by hand or machine. If you like crayon tinting, feel free to use that.

You're welcome to embellish it with vintage fabric, reproduction fabric, rick rack, crocheting, tatting or anything else vintage that you can think of.

The only thing I would prefer you not to use is counted cross stitch since counted work was not available in the 30's and 40's.

You're welcome to use any vintage patterns you may have like I did with my vintage style apron.

Here are a few photos of some of the towels I've made to give you an idea of what you can do and what vintage should look like:



The strawberry towel is hand appliqued with blanket stitching and embroidery. The border is tatting.



This design is from one of my vintage Vogart patterns. The border is one of my reproduction 30's prints.



Another of my vintage Vogart embroidery patterns bordered with gingham check and rickrack.



Last but not least, another vintage Vogart embroidery pattern bordered simply with some blue rickrack.

All of these towels are made from scratch using white quilters cotton fabric.

If you remember my Days Of The Week Rooster towels, those were worked on Martha Stewart Days Of The Week cotton towels available at KMart. The days are already on there.

I will have my towel ready to show you tomorrow. Yes, I got the idea last night while I was stitching on a towel. Mine towel is actually vintage!

Anyway, when you complete you project, email me a photo along with a brief description of what you did to accomplish your vintage look such as what items or techniques you used and I will post the photos and your descriptions here at the blog. If you use vintage patterns and want to scan the cover photo, I'll be happy to include that as well.

I can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Enjoy everyone!

The Next 6 Aprons

Ok, I've finished up my design work for the day a little bit early so I thought I'd share the next 6 aprons with you.

July - The American flag is made of ribbons sewn onto a foundation and then appliqued down.



August - This cute little sunshine is machine appliqued. My mom designed him. He reminds me of the sunshine on the Kellogg's Raisin Bran box. Maybe that's where she got the idea. I really like the fabric on the back!



September - Again, the schoolhouse is machine appliqued and the "abc - 123" are machine embroidered.



October - More machine applique for this little pumpkin.



November - This little harvest design is counted cross stitch. For my readers outside the US, our American Thanksgiving holiday is in November.



December - Last but not least in this series, is the December apron. Mom decided that since I was born in December, that she would use my Zodiac sign which is Capricorn instead of doing a Christmas design. She did make me a Christmas apron but it's not part of this series. I'll share that one tomorrow. The Capricorn is counted cross stitch.



That's all of the aprons in this series now. I have several more to share with you but I'll wait until tomorrow. I'm just about ready to stitch.

Speaking Of Aprons!

A few years after Scott and I got married, back when I still made an effort to actually cook interesting meals, my mother made me a set of aprons, one for each month of the year. My sister had just gotten married too so mom made us both a set.

Well, I thought they were so pretty, too pretty to use, so I decided to save them for awhile. I think she made them for us for Christmas 1990. Yikes! Up until now, I was still saving them. Well, with the current apron craze going on, I am now using them! I pulled them all out the other day and I photographed them to share with you. Remember, my photography is far from good!

Except for the cross-stitched ones, mom designed the patterns herself. Here they are:

January - the drink is cross-stitch and the streamers are ribbons that she couched down with the sewing machine.



February - the heart is eyelet fabric that mom appliqued.



March - the traditional Irish verse is counted cross stitch.



April - this one is my favorite! The easter egg is done with strips of fabric pieced to a foundation.
Sorry the photo is a little blurry. It looked fine on the 1 inch camera screen! The flowers are little lace appliques and the grass is embroidered by hand.



May - The flowers are appliqued by machine and flower centers are buttons.



June - This one is fun! The strawberry is velour I think. It's fuzzy! I think mom had to hand applique that down.



The months are embroidered on all of them by hand. I folded the corners over on each one so you could see what mom put on the back. I didn't press any of them because most are kept folded in a drawer. I just thought you'd all enjoy seeing them.

I have to get some work done for now but I'll post more a little later.

The Long Awaited....

vintage Chicken Scratch Apron! I found this at a flea market a couple of weeks back for only $3.00! It's not in mint, there are a few stains that I couldn't get out but they're not too obvious. The sewing isn't perfect and the CS is coming out a little bit on the pocket but since it was the only CS I've seen at all the flea markets I've been too this year, and since it was only $3.00, I thought I would give it a good home. I'm going to try to fix the stitching on the pocket. It's not too bad.



And here's a closeup of the stitching at the bottom.



I think if you click on the photos, it'll take you to a larger image.

Vogart Transfer Patterns

If you've enjoyed seeing some of my vintage Vogart iron-on transfer patterns, be sure to visit Laren's The Needle's Excellency blog to see her collection! I'll get some more of mine out in another week or so and scan the packets. I have alot of them and they're really neat! But Laren has 2 that I don't have so enjoy!