Tea Towel-Part 1

I am so excited to actually be blogging about a crap, I mean craft, project rather than just another dinner. I was all set to start working on this last Friday night after the little people went to bed, but as it turns out dinner, a trip to Wal-Mart, and a trip to JoAnn by myself with the little people after a week of working and being sick just wore me out. So, I watched tv instead.

But last night I was set. This is my first attempt at decorative tea towels. At first I wasn't real sure about my fabric choice but once I got going I thought it was going to be cute.

Here are my supplies:

A set of plain white kitchen towels from Wal-Mart

Decorative fabric-this is black with cherries on it if you can't tell

Coordinating rick rack

Coordinating thread (I didn't use the thread because as it turns out I already had red thread. Why, I don't know, but it matched and I like that thread better so I used it) I did use grey for the bobbin because I didn't have white. I use grey for almost all my sewing when I need something neutral, it works great.

And a can of cider. I went with this instead of wine. I admit Crispin isn't my favorite and I didn't drink it all, but it was still a nice treat.

I cut the fabric into a strip 4 inches wide and the cut it the width of the towel plus 1/2 inch. And as it turns out I wasn't being careful when I cut the fabric so the ruler slid so I had to fix it and the strips ended up being more like 3 3/4 inches wide. Whatever.

I folded each end of the fabric over 1/4 inch and pressed it to make a nice edge.

I figured out where I wanted the strip and put it in place. Great news, I didn't have to pin. The fabric just stuck to the towel like storybook characters on a felt board at the library.

I cut a strip of rick rack about 1/2 inch wider than the towel and was ready to go.

I lined the rick rack up along the raw edge of the fabric and got ready to sew. Things were looking great. I was actually liking the fabric once it was all together on the towel. Zip zip zip a straight stitch along the middle of the rick rack and I was ready to turn the ends under. I removed my towel from my sewing machine and found it to be an EPIC FAIL!

My tension was all wacked out and it totally didn't sew together right. And no, I didn't check part way through. And yes, I know I should do this. So, I had to engage in some antisewing.

At this point, I was done. Defeated. Finished. I didn't want to do any more. So, I put the stuff down to work on another night. Hopefully tonight. So, there will be more to this story, just not now. But rest assured, as with the rice, I will make this towel mine. No, I'm not going to use the naughty word...family blog. Sheesh people.

Oh, as for the tension. I think I know what happened. I keep my sewing machine in my dining room under a plastic cover, not a case, more like a plastic bag. Well, Little Man likes to touch things. I'm pretty sure he found the tension dial and moved it. We'll see tonight when I check to see if it was moved. You might be thinking poor Little Man, getting blamed when he might not have done it. Well, he probably did, and if he didn't he probably did something else that he didn't get caught doing.