14 Days of Love 2011: Day 13

Day 13: Stuffed Fabric Hearts - You don't even have to know how to sew to recreate these hearts. As long as you know how to cut, staple and glue you are good to go. It is also a great way to make use of a tea towel. Get the project sheet here.

25 Days of Christmas: Day 24

Day 24: Decorative Tea Towel and Apron - The Fabric Dept did a great job with coming up with projects to accent their theme room, Country Charm. They went above an beyond decorating their room. The apron pictured is made from a tea towel, ribbon and felt mitten die cut from the Accu-Cut Machine. The towel was made the same way. It is an an adorable set and would make a great gift for the baker on your list. Crafts Direct sells all the products to recreate these items and to make it even easier you can just pick up a kit for the apron. You can find instructions here for the towel or here for the apron. Have a wonderful Christmas Eve!

25 Days of Christmas: Day 18

Day 18: Tea Towel Oven Mitt & Potholders - How much fun would it be receive either one of these as a
gift. They were made using tea towels and some printed fabric. Just click on the photos to download the instructions. If you are making them for a gift it would be fun to attach this little saying to them:
" Extending a warm hand of friendship to you and yours as you celebrate the holidays."

14 Days of Love: Day 5

Day 5: Applique Heart Tea Towel - Tea towels are becoming more & more popular, and there are so many cute patterns available, like this one. The pattern used to make this towel is called, "Towels for All Seasons" and includes other designs than just the hearts. I like the simplicity of this towel, using a black & white gingham tea towel, that we sell here at Crafts Direct, along with the two colors of felt. Sure to win over the heart of any crafter.

Tea Towel Potholders and Oven Mitt!

These items are a great addition to the tea towel aprons I posted earlier today. These require a little more work, but well worth it. The tea towel oven mitt uses one tea towel as the liner and a matching fabric.

As for the tea towel potholders, you can get two potholders out of one tea towel, which makes it very affordable. Both the oven mitt & potholders have a heat resistant fabric used in them so you won't have to worry about burning your hands. You could make these along with a coordinating apron, for a fabulous gift for the baker in your life, or yourself.

Tea Towel Aprons

A couple of the ladies in the fabric dept. have been busy making some new samples and I thought I would share them with you. They are fairly easy to make and there is a project sheet for each sample. The full length apron is made of one tea towel and is adjustable which is great. The utensils were cut from our Accu-Cut machine, which is free to use if material is purchased from Crafts Direct, and appliqued onto the apron for the perfect touch.

The half length apron is just as easy. This apron requires you to sew 6 straight lines, 4 of which create three pockets, the other 2 to attach the coordinating ribbon for the tie. To finish it off just add and iron-on.

Winter Land Towels!

It is never to early to start thinking about Christmas, especially here at Crafts Direct. We got in a cute new iron-on embroidery pattern from Sublime Stitching. Pictured are a few samples Leah whipped out this past weekend. I think they are adorable. They would make an affordable hand made gift for some one on your list this Christmas.

Quilt Shop

O.K. Who says that spring and summer months makes for slow crafting? That really doesn't seem to be the case here. We have been busy filling up the area with lots of new things. We have just received a HUGE order of tea towels. Lots of new styles. checks, stripes and waffle weaves and some really cool new colors.They will be a lot of fun for all you embroiderers or those of you who have caught the embellishing tea towel fever.


We are expecting lots of new lines of fabrics to start arriving soon from Thimble berries, Michael Miller, Red Rooster, Robert Kaufman, RJR, Andover and Buggy Barn just to name a few.
Christmas Fabrics, yes Christmas, will start showing up in June and July.
We will be heading off to a Market the first part of June to buy more, more and more fabric.It should be lots of fun to see what's being released for winter. I can't wait! Hope to see you soon! Cathy

Tea Towels

If you have been checking our blog from the very beginning you may remember when I talked about giving your flour sack towels an update. (If not check out the January Archives!) Today I have a project for you that was done for the store to give you an idea of what you can do to spice up a traditional craft. We used the everyday white flour sack towel but we cut it down in size to create 4 fancy tea towels. We cut the flour sack towel in 4 even sections and then hemmed our ragged edges. The embroidery was done using one of our Savvy Stitches embroidery kits which we had mentioned before. These kits are great because the patterns are very modern, they can be used several times, and if you aren't an embroidery pro no worries, they come with directions and everything you need to get started. The edges are what gives this tea towel a unique look. We used rick rack, ribbon, and a ruffled trim. Each was sewn on one at a time. Rick rack can get a little tricky so make sure you get it wide enough to fit your stitches down the middle. Hopefully this will just get the ball rolling for you and you can make it your own. The best part that I have found of embroidery is that it is probably the most inexpensive craft out there so you can splurge on the accessories!
Tiff