Hey, Who Took My Towel?!?!

WAY too often I reach for a towel after washing my hands or washing dishes and my towel is gone!  I stand there with dripping hands looking for something clean to wipe them on.  No matter how many towels I keep around, they all get taken!  Usually one of the girls spills something and swipes my towel to mop it up.

But not any more.

I recently saw some ruffly towels and was inspired to make my own.  Then I was struck with brilliance and decided to put buttons and a letter K on MY towel so the little towel snatchers can't steal it!  Then, when I was trying to decide on how to do the K I thought about a really cute pillow I saw and stole borrowed the concept. Now, I'll admit that her pillow ruffles are much nicer looking than my own ruffles, but hey, I'm just glad it worked on the first try!

Here are my materials.  The fabric is from Hobby Lobby and the towels are from the Dollar Tree.  Next time I'll get nicer towels.  

I cut a strip of each fabric that was twice the width of the towel for my ruffle layers.  I ran them through my sewing machine with a long stitch to ruffle them.

Then I pinned and sewed each ruffle covering the green stripes.

 I like zig-zags.

Next came the part I was the most worried about.  I made a K out of an index card and traced it on my towel with a fabric marker.  Then I took a rectangle of fabric and ruffled both long edges.

 I pinned my fabric to the back of the towel, right side against the towel.

 Then I flipped it back over and stitched the outline of my K.

 I cut out my K inside the stitches.

 Since my towel was unraveling and shedding really bad I went over the cut edges with a zig-zag.

 I found some big ugly buttons in my button jar and covered them with fabric.  I traced a circle around the button on the fabric, then hand stitched around outside of the circle.  I covered the button with hot glue to get rid of the grooves and covered it with the fabric circle.  When I pulled the thread tight the fabric wrapped nicely around my button.  

I sewed a button hole on each side of my K.  This is the first time I used the button hole setting on my new sewing machine and after figuring out how on earth to get it to work (I had the foot on backwards) I decided I definitely love that setting and my machine.  I folded my towel where it will hang on the bar and marked through the button hole where to attach my buttons.

 And finally MY towel is finished!  It's hung too high for the girls to unbutton and run off with (I hope).  

I have another Dollar Tree towel.

And lots of ideas.

 And another snow day tomorrow.    

If only I had the energy to go clean the kitchen and try out my new towel...