Spring Tea Towel

With Easter fast approaching, I wanted to make a Spring inspired tea towel that featured pretty flowers rather than using traditional Easter motifs (like bunnies and eggs).  The Spring Tea Towel features assorted flowers in pink and yellow that are raw edged appliqued onto a ready made tea towel. Embroidered details and crocheted edging were added. This is such a fun, quick project, that really adds a pop of colour to your Easter table. I have shown a few peeks over on instagram over the past week and was asked to provide some directions.

I won’t be actually be using the tea towel  to dry dishes (it is way too pretty for that!), but it is perfect to line a breakfast tray; wrap up some fresh scones or hot cross buns; or simply to bring some colour into your kitchen. The spring inspired tea towel would make a sweet hostess gift, and would be ideal to include with a gift from your kitchen. If you don’t know how to crochet, consider adding a pompom trim, large ricrac, or even a fabric ruffle to the bottom edge of the tea towel.

If you would like to make your own Spring Tea Towel, here are some general instructions.

You will need the following materials:

• scraps of fabric in pink, yellow, aqua, and green for the floral appliques
• Tea Towel
• fusible web (such as Steam a Seam or Vliesofix)
• embroidery thread in yellow
• crochet cotton, 3 ply, in pink

*Note on Fabrics: I used Old New 30’s 2017 by Atsuko Matsuyama for Lecien Fabrics; and Dots and Ginghams by Lecien Fabrics. Florals, ginghams, and polka dots work so well together.

* Note on Tea Towels: I often stock up on tea towels that would make great applique foundations – checks, polka dots, stripes or low volume patterns work well. I prefer tea towels that are 100% cotton and it is best to pre-wash as they can shrink.  Mine came from Target, but check out Amazon for some great designs.

Instructions:

1. Draw nine flowers (small, medium, and large) and six leaves on the paper backing of the fusible web. Cut around the design, leaving at least 1/4 inch around the design. Fuse onto the back of the fabric scraps following manufacturers directions. Cut out each flower and leaf.  I used 5 yellow flowers and 4 pink flowers. Refer to the top photo in this post for suggested layout. I gave some of the flowers a coloured centre for added interest. Fuse in place on the tea towel.

2. Set your stitch length to 1.5 – 2.0. Slowly and carefully stitch around each shape two or three times to secure. An open toe sewing foot makes this easier to see where you are sewing. Sew close to the edge. I matched the thread colours to the fabric, but you can use a darker colour for added contrast.

3. Using three strands of embroidery thread, stitch a running stitch along both long sides, and the top of the tea towel. I stitched on the existing stitching line on the tea towel.

4. Cut a length of 3 ply crochet cotton that is four times the width of the tea towel. Thread the yarn onto a wool needle. Tie both ends together. You will blanket stitch along the bottom of the tea towel to form the foundation for the crochet.Using a water soluble pen, mark dots around the edge of the tea towel at ½ inch intervals. Starting at one corner, bring the needle inside the tea towel and blanket stitch along the edge using stitches that are 3/8 inch in length, and spaced ½ inch apart where marked.

5. Using a 2.75 mm crochet hook, crochet the edging as follows:

• Row 1: crochet 3 single crochets into the bottom of each blanket stitch.
• Row 2: crochet a single crochet into each SC of row 1.
• Row 3:  Ch 3, skip first 2 stitches, *1 DC in next st, Ch 3, 3 DC around the post of the DC, skip next 2 stitches; Rep from * to last 3 stitches, Ch 3, slst in last stitch of previous row.
• 

The Spring Tea Towel was such a fun project and great way to use some of your favourite fabric scraps. Our Guest Towel with Fabric Trim shows another way of decorating ready made towels.

Check out more of our Easter inspired craft projects here.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Lecien Fabrics for providing the fabric used in this project. This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are our own.