Sunday Stash Report

We have a stall for Handmade Love today so I decided to get busy and make some more hanging towels as the numbers we had were low. They are fairly popular so wanted to top up the supply. I had bought a good few whilst I was away when I found them on special a couple of times (I use regular hand towels)

By hanging towels I mean the kitchen towels that are common - the ones that hang from door knobs, fridge doors, or tea towel racks. Mostly they are made from towelling tea towels, sometimes cut in half and sometimes folded over and worked double. The tops of most that you see are crocheted but I have a pattern that uses fabric which is much quicker to use and frankly in my opinion looks more modern. Most of the ones that I find that have the crocheted tops are made from cheap and usually not very absorbent tea towels. I don't blame the stall holders. Buying better quality tea towels costs more which cuts into the profits if its a professional seller and costs the volunteers more if its a fundraising or charity stall. 

But I hate them. One wipe and the towels is soggy. They usually have white backgrounds and so get discoloured really quickly.

I made my hanging towels from hand towels and I buy reasonable quality ones. Even if I buy slightly cheaper versions they are still more absorbent than the cheap terry towelling tea towels.

I base my design on one from Fat Quarter Shop. 

This week I knocked out 11 of them in a range of colours. I use Velcro to close the handle (have yet to conquer button holes) but put a decorative button on the closure to snazzy things up. Each handle requires 2 pieces of fabric 9"x10". The first time I made these towels I used different fabrics for the front and back but have since altered my design to use the same back and front... looks neater. It requires a piece of batting the same size. For these towels I used scraps of batting which I joined together to make wide enough. I love using up scraps of  both wadding and fabric

So each towel is not a great user of fabric but when you make 11 of them it adds up nicely. Total fabric used 1.19m

I also made a couple of little pencil cases. I saw the pattern here 

I altered it a bit and may end up writing my own tutorial for it as some of the things she does are a bit tricky and there are easier ways to do it I think. But meantime... I loved the way they turned out. They will be on our stall next week at Tickled Pink markets. I've made 2 and have started a couple more. 

These are the two applique panels I made. I made the pencils longer than in the pattern and a bit fatter.

The first one I finished. I love how it turned out. I forgot to take a photo of the other one when I finished it and have handed it on to our co-ordinator for the stall next week.

Total fabric usage .72m

No fabric purchases this week - whoot so even though my projects were only small its all positive.

Fabric Tracking Week 23

Fabric Used                 1.92m
Fabric added                0.00m
Weekly net                   1.92m

Year to date
Used                           39.38m
Added                         35.45m
YTD Net                        3.93m

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