2104 Wildflower Tea Towel Calendar

I participated in Spoonflower’s 2014 Tea Towel Calendar contest this year. This seems to be one that many of the designers look forward to and tea towels seem to be one of their best selling items. I received my order a few days ago and the design is now for sale in my Spoonflower shop.

The dark blue prints as a true navy blue on the linen-cotton canvas. The other colors printed very true to the colors on the screen. I wanted to design something that I would hang in my own kitchen, but also something classic enough that my mom would enjoy it too. It’s a little bit modern and little bit classic.

Need some hostess gifts for those holiday parties or something inexpensive for gift exchanges at the office? You can order a yard of fabric, with four towels, for less than $30. The edges are unfinished, but I’ll show you how you can hem them easily.

This is easy enough for a beginner. If you can thread your machine and sew a straight line, then you can do this!

Start with navy thread, which will blend in making uneven stitches less obvious.

Trim around the edges. The blue border is about just over 1 inch. If you order a yard of fabric with 4 towels, just mark the center of the blue border and cut there. Cutting with a rotary cutter and mat makes the most even edges, but scissors and a steady hand will work as well.

To hem, fold over and press 1/4 inch and then 1/4 inch again. I also folded and pressed mine a third time so that I could see where my fold line was when stitching from the front. Unfold that third section before stitching and use the pressed line to make sure you get all of the edges stitched down.

The fabric can get pretty thick at the corners with all of those folds, but when I used a heavy duty needle I ended up with big ugly puncture marks. So, lesson learned—use a sharp universal needle.

If you want to add a hang tag, cut a piece of twill tape or ribbon (about 4-5 inches long, with angled edges) and tuck it under the fold as you are stitching.