My Version of the Hanging Kitchen Towel Topper

I have always liked those kitchen towels with a topper to hang onto the kitchen drawer handle. Now I know that it isn't that hard to make one with the sewing machine but I wanted to do most of the work with the embroidery machine. Heck I have a couple of embroidery machines so I might as well use them!

First I digitized the topper so that while it is hooped I stitch down batting, then the front fabric and quilt it, next the embroidered name and lastly, stitch on the back.  Once it is removed from the hoop it is turned right side out.

The kitchen towel gets cut in half and it is used to make two of the hanging towels. I took one half and pleated the cut edge to fit into the topper. You can just gather it but I decided to make pleats. Once I pinned the pleats I ran a straight stitch about 1/4 from the edge to hold it in place.

Now I put it inside the topper and topstitched it in place.

Next I made a button hole in the tab.

I sewed a button on and here is the finished product.

This was my first attempt and then I added quilting to the body of the topper. I definitely like the quilted version better. 

This is definitely a great hostess gift.  It only takes about 8 minutes to do the topper in the embroidery machine and depending on how adept you are at making buttonholes, the whole project is done within a half hour.  Below are some that I made.

The Latest Endeavor

I decided that I needed a cute gift idea to use as a class.  I came up with a pot holder/ tea towel ensemble. The uniqueness of it is that both items are done on the embroidery machine.  To be able to teach a class on it, I needed to actually digitize the designs myself.  So I set about it and actually it did not take me as long as I had thought it would.  I have already used the idea for an engagement party gift where I added the couple's names to the potholders. It made a cute set.

So for my class, I decided to present the theme of holiday hostess gifts.  Since it is early fall, I made appliques of leaves and a christmas tree. So here is what the class attendees will learn - how to make a potholder in-the-hoop and how to do embroidery machine applique. I think it will be a hit!