Christmas towel

Materials needed: 1 yard trim

1/4 yard ruffle fabric ( for me the red and white stripe)

1/8 yard band fabric ( for me the snowflake fabric)

1 hand towel

Basic sewing supplies 

sewing machine

Step one: Cut out your band: Measure your towel width wise  and add 1/2 inch to that. My towel was 16.25 inches so I cut my band pieces to be 16.75 inches by 2.5". ( you need two)

 Sew these together pillowcase style ( right sides together) and leave an opening on one of the long edges to flip it right side out. ( use 1/4" seam allowance)

 Trim your corners before you flip

 Press

Here is your band. Note the opening. Set this aside for a few moments while we work on the ruffle. We will be making our ruffle just like we did in the 8/18/10 blog post if you want to refer to that for more detailed directions.

Cut your ruffle fabric to be 5" x WOF then trim it down to double your band width. Mine was 5"x 33"

 Turn your short edges under and stitch to hide your raw edges.

 Press in half lengthwise.

Here is where you do the nifty zig zag over the pearl cotton for your gather.

 See the black pearl cotton running under the zig zags.

Gather and tie your ends when you have the ruffle measuring the width of your towel.
Now for the pinning!  Pin your ruffle so that it's long folded edge lays even with the bottom edge of your towel. Pin the band on the towel so that it catches the ruffles long raw edge along its top. Baste using thread that matches the towel color in your bobbin.

Now switch to a zipper foot if you have one.  This trim didn't have much of an edge on it to have it in the seam like I did on the first towel so I decided to just use it on top of the band instead of wrestling with it. The zipper foot with the needle in the far right position allows you to stitch the trim on neatly and also covers the basting stitches.

 Repeat for the top of the band.

 Two down one to go!