Ruffled Dishcloth

As my trusty followers know, I'm working on a little segment known as Christmas in July.  My kitchen can always use some festooning during the holidays so I wanted to try my hand at some festooned dish towels.  I'm usually not much of a fan of commercially sold holiday dish towels.  They're typically hum drum and sometimes even boarderline kooky.  I've definately seen some great ones, but didn't find their price tag really all that great.  But, here's a little solution that even a novice sewer can enjoy.  Seriously, this would be a fantastic project for a novice sewer.  First of all, no one has to WEAR it!  It's not going to hang on your windows for a decade.  It's just a dish towell.  Something you'll probably toss in a couple seasons.  Unless of course you decide to frame it. 

Here's the tutorial to prove just how simple they are.

Start with some absorbant fabric (white, colored, printed - whatever floats your boat)  Cottons are good.  Fold it on itself to cut an even rectangle.  The size isn't super important, use one of your old dish towels as a guide if you want. 

Then sew a 1/4" rolled hem on all four sides (fold in 1/4 " - iron - fold in 1/4" again - iron again - and sew.)

Next cut an approximately 2 inch wide strip of fabric for your ruffle.  It should be about twice as long as your dish towel is wide.  I had to stich together a couple of strips because my scrap of fabric wasn't long enough.  I just hid that seam inside one of my "ruffles"

Then go ahead and stich around all four edges of your ruffle piece about 1/4" inside the edge.  This allows it to fray some without completely unraveling and creating a stringy mess in your dryer.

Now comes the fun part.  When you sew on the "ruffle" simply free-form the gathers as you go. 

Next you can embellish more if desired with ribbon, buttons, ric rac, etc.

Here she is!

And just because I need a little more PINK in my life...

Now wasn't that easy!?

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