Dish Towel Rescue Mission…commence!
This is one of my favorite dish towels. It’s horrible, frayed and falling apart. It’s stained from family pizza night and wiping up messes after my kids.
But it’s absorbent and rugged and I love it the waffle-y-ness of it.
Maybe I’ve loved this one a bit too much.
Finally, I decided to rescue this dish towel. The mission: patch the gnarly hole and make my dish towel fabulous again. Alright, okay, maybe not fabulous, but at least functional and not-so-scary.
The first step was to find a scrap of fabric that would be wide enough to patch the hole, while being long enough to go across and around the towel plus a couple of inches for overlapping (see below). I also pulled out a couple of different threads to decide what color I’d like to use.
Hem along the length of the fabric trip, top and bottom.
Lay the towel across the fabric strip, making sure the scary bit will be covered.
Fold fabric strip over, smoothing and pinning so the pieces are even.
Fold over end and pin in place.
I wanted a distinct stitch, so I chose an extra wide one on my sewing machine, D50. This particular stitch goes back and forth three times.
Use the fun stitch of your choice and stitch all the way around the patch. See that pin? Pull it out. You definitely do not want to stitch across it!
If you have a walking foot, use it! You are sewing on a towel after all and a walking foot will help pull the thickness through. Hmm, need to dust my sewing machine…
Turn the corner and keep on stitching!
After the outside edges are stitched, I changed to white thread and stitched rows along the patch. Remember, the inside of this patch is scary, loose, falling-apart towel. Extra stitching will give the towel spiffy new stability.
Turn the patch and stitch the other way.
Rescue mission complete! It’s still not perfect, and it still has some funky pizza stains, but it’s usable and won’t go to the landfill.
Reduce, reuse, recycle!
I have a couple more towels like this and am thinking it would be fun to add some patchwork for a fun repair!
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I never would have thought to patch a dishtowel, I just turn them into rags for the workshop usually!
I have more than enough rags for cleaning and such and I hated to throw these out. They’re just the perfect kitchen towel for me. I have several more lined up for patching!
I think it’s awesome.
Too bad you can’t patch potholders in the same way! I have a potholder from Ireland that I love, but it’s gotten too thin to use and the only way I can think of salvaging it would be to purchase some thermal quilted fabric and put a new back on it, which would take off most of the sheep pattern!
Could you take the whole thing apart and maybe put some muslin behind the original fabric with new batting in order to salvage the original fabric?
Would it still be heat proof then? I know all the patterns and things for potholders tell you to get heat proof fabric for the back.
I usually use heat-proof batting (InsulBright) and 100% cotton fabric. I’ve never had any problems with the heat getting through. I’ve even used an old potholder and put new fabric on the outside. That works great, too.
that might not be a bad idea. Gut an older potholder and re-make the sheep one. My potholders look horrible and like they’ve been through a war! Then again, so do my tea towels.
There’s nothing like the daily wear and tear of domestic war!
ah, spoken with much more experience at this housewifing thing than me! 😀
I did the stay-at-home mom thing for 14 years before I went back to work in 2010…so yes, loads of experience!
My Hero! 😀 Er, Heroine!
Haha I absolutely love this. I am a total packrat and hate to throw away anything still useable, and I’ve been known to fix random things. . . although it usually involves duct tape. Back in high school I had a pair of sandals – leather uppers with a chunky rubber sole. The footbed in the back of the one sandal was horribly worn down and even missing a chunk, so I used duct tape and a bunch of rubber bands to bulk up the worn part. I loved those shoes.
I just hate to be wasteful. After all, “away” is, not really away, so I fix and/or repair what ever I can! Nothing like using our crafty ingenuity to keep the things we love going as long as possible!
Wow Jen, I would have just cut off the raggy part and hemmed it. And you’re right, it is called a waffle-weave pattern.
I did think about that, but it would have been a wonky size after, so I went for the patch instead. 🙂