Festive Guest Towels

Festive Elegant Guest Towels by Birdhouse Cottage Crafts   You Will Need Festive Guest Towel embroidery designs from Birdhouse Cottage Crafts.  Tear away stabiliser Thin batting or two pieces of felt that will fit within your hoop – not to be hooped Temporary spray adhesive Four pieces of material that just fit within the hoop and co-ordinate with the colour of your towel – not to be hooped One piece of Velcro +- ½ x3” long Fingertip/Guest towel (+- 12 x 20”) Embroidery threads. You can use thread to match your material/towel, or you can use contrasting colours for the placement stitches, lattice background stitch and satin stitch edge.  First prepare the towel: Fingertip/guest towels are too wide and need to be folded to fit within the topper size. The short side of your towel needs to be folded/pleated till it will fit within 4”. Stitch across the top of the towel, about 1” down, to hold this shape. If the towel has a fringe cut it off and overlock the edge. Along this top edge machine stitch one side of the Velcro to the top of the towel.   Making The Topper:  The choice of colours for these designs is entirely up to you so I will only explain the steps as they relate to the colour stops. I have used a variety of colours to give you all the colour stops you need.   Please don’t follow the colours in other programs, such as Embird – There are obvious colour choices such as green for the leaves, but the rest is your choice. *        Means - Remove hoop from machine.  **      Means - Return hoop to machine This 4x4 towel topper is made in two sections - a front and a back - that will be joined together and then stitched onto the prepared towel.   Front Hoop 2 layers of tear away stabiliser.  Spray one piece of batting/felt with temporary adhesive spray and place in the centre of your hooped stabiliser. Press down firmly. Spray one piece of material and place it over the batting/felt. You may want to secure this sandwich with pins, outside the design area, till the outline shape has stitched.   Stitch Order Shape of the topper Lattice background stitch (looks best when the colour matches the material). Design – Your choice of colours. * Spray another piece of material with temporary adhesive and place over the back of the design. ** Stitch the narrow zigzag outline * Trim away all material and padding outside the shape of the design on the top and underneath. TIP: Trim the material away first, then the batting/felt – you get a neater finish.  ** Stitch Satin stitch edging  Remove the front of your Festive Guest Towel topper from the stabiliser. Make the back, using the ‘Back’ design in the same way, except there will be no design to stitch out.    Putting It Together: First attach the towel, by machine, to the bottom inside edge of the Back section with the Velcro facing out.  Line up the front and back sections, straight corners together. Using a large zigzag stitch, join the front and back together.   You will need to attach the second piece of Velcro to the inside of the front section, preferably by hand stitching so that the stitches are not visible from the front.  When complete, hang your Festive Guest Towel on your bathroom towel rail. These designs come to you as a promotion on the fifth anniversary of Birthouse Cottage Crafts designs being on the Net and in plenty of time for you to make them as unique gifts. Heather would like to take this opportunity of wishing you a wonderful festive season, filled with love and happiness and all you wish for yourself.