I was pretty happy to spot these bolts of 100% cotton tea towel fabric at my local fabric store. The edges are finished with selvages, so you just have to sew up either end and voilà! you have a lovely tea towel for considerably less than what it would cost to buy them pre-made. The fabric comes in classic stripes and checks as well as vintage patterns.
According to the Fabric Depot website, a typical tea towel takes 3/4 of a yard to make one towel. The fabrics pictured here run between $5.49 and $6.99 per yard, so with a small amount of labor on your part, you can have a lovely stack of towels for a fraction of what it would cost you to buy them.
The fabric can also be made into runners or napkins or if you're more talented on the sewing machine than I am, a market bag or wine sack. It would also be a good choice for curtains. If you don't have access to a sewing machine to finish the cut ends, you can always leave them raw for a frayed look.
I first spotted this fabric at Stone Mountain & Daughter in Berkeley but it is easy to find online, such as The Fabric Depot where some of the patterns are currently on sale for as low as $3.90 a yard.
I love wrapping kitchen gifts in a tea towel furoshiki-style, so this fabric will really come in handy for that as well.
Find it!
• Stone Mountain & Daughter
• Fabric Depot
• Sewing Instructions from the Fabric Depot
Related: Tea Towels as Curtains
(Images: Fabric Depot)
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Funny, my mom just bought some of this--in the cherry pattern. At Fabric Depot when they were having their 30% off sale!
After reading this article, I'm so inspired to get my sewing machine out and let my creative juices flow. There was a post here a while back about making produce bags from T shirts. I purchased some lovely colored T shirts from a Salvation Army store for $1.00 to $1.50/ea. Made the bags and gave them as Christmas stocking stuffers. They were a huge hit.
Now I'm going to check out fabrics for more gifting. Napkins, runners, bags and gift wrapping. The fun challenge will be to find the appropriate fabric, pattern and design for each individual and not choose just what I would want for myself.
Thank you for the inspiring me by this article.
I absolutely love this! My husband and I are always looking for ways to make things and this is definitely a keeper.
I was just at my only local fabric store and didn't see this fabric...I'll have to ask. I was there looking for fabric to make my own napkins with my new sewing skills! Timely article!
These are cute, but I tend to just go to Daiso (the Japanese dollar store, which I think is still maybe a West coast thing) for my tea towels. They are definitely cute, and for $1.50 they are a really good deal. I love this one, but in green.
I just went to the Fabric Depot, looking at toweling. What they have is toweling that is HEMMED at the side, not a woven selvedge. So, while the buyer does not have to sew the sides, it is not as satisfactory as toweling that is made the old fashioned way: woven about 20 inches wide, with selvedge down both sides. A tea towel would have just 2 hemmed sides, not 4. Sad. I am looking for this fabric and not finding it anywhere.