Pleated Towels

These towels are a birthday gift for my friend Mackenzie. She bought two sets of pot holders that I made using this fun P & B retro kitchen fabric. After receiving those she said she would like to have some matching hand towels. I showed her the pleated pillow tutorial that I had recently read in American Patchwork & Quilting. The tutorial is called Jolly Holiday and was designed by Anna Griffin. At the end of the tutorial is a short explanation by the executive editor on how to dress up a kitchen towel using the same pleated fabric idea.  Mackenzie said that she liked the look but also wanted to add some sort of closure so that her toddler twins wouldn't be able to pull the towel off the rack and drag it around on the floor.

towels with button closures

I found these snap closures on a strip of white fabric at the craft store and cut it into four small sections. Sewing the pieces to the towel proved to be difficult because the presser foot and the buttons kept getting in the way of each other. Eventually, I just removed the foot and sewed them down without it.

sewing the buttons down, without a foot

the pleats

finished toddler proof towel

I made these Aggie towels as a White Elephant gift for my family's Christmas Eve gathering. Lots of my cousins, aunts and uncles are Texas A&M University Alumni, and my brother is a freshman there now.
I used my aunt's embroidery machine to sew the word 'Howdy' on each towel using maroon thread and at the bottom of the towel I added some maroon fabric folded into pleats. There is a one inch strip of fabric at the top of the pleats to give it a clean line.

the pleats require a lot of pins to hold them in place

My aunt Janet received these towels in the White Elephant gift exchange; all three of her kids went to A&M so I think the towels found a good home. My family had lunch at her house yesterday to spend time with my aunt and uncle who are visiting from Colorado, and Aunt Janet had a Howdy towel hanging up at the kitchen sink.

finished Aggie towel

I have plans to make a few sets of Valentine's Day towels, and after making these two sets, I think the Valentine towels will be slightly different. The fabric is cut, the towels have been washed, I bought matching thread yesterday, and I have started folding the pleats and pinning them down.
My sewing machine is being cleaned and serviced, and hopefully soon I will get a phone call letting me know it is ready to be picked up.
I have been without it for eleven days so far and my projects are beginning to stack up.