Fun with tea towels

I had these two cotton tea towels and some matching grosgrain ribbon. What do you think I did with them?

Neat, huh? I love the way it looks, lying there on the floor like that. On me, though? Not so much. It’s that bib section. It’s too wide, or too tall, or too not-body-shaped, or something. See?

Still, it’s a cool idea, I think, and with a little tweaking at the top, it’ll be truly great.

Turning two tea towels into a full apron is a pretty simple hack, so I’ll tell you in general terms how I did it, rather than giving you a detailed tutorial. Maybe you can make one with a better bib than I did! Or, leave the bib off altogether. Two tea towels would make a great pocketed cafe apron, I think. I’d have done that but I have enough half-aprons. What I need is something that will keep splattering spaghetti sauce from ruining yet another white tee shirt. Ahem.

Materials

2 cotton or linen tea towels. Vintage is nice. The ones I used were vintage-inspired, and came from here. I love using these towels in my kitchen, and plan to replace the ones I just cut up.

3 yards 7/8″ grosgrain ribbon to coordinate with the towels

basic sewing supplies

Directions

My towels are 24-ish inches wide. (I say “ish” because they are kind of wonky and not exactly even.) I measured 13 inches from one end and cut. I measured 10 inches from the other end and cut.  The 13 inch piece became the bib, the 10 inch piece became the pocket, and the little strip between them became trash.

I pressed the raw edge of the bib 1/2-inch towards the wrong side, lined it up with the bottom towel, overlapping about 1/2-inch as shown. This is the back side of the apron, by the way. It is face down on the floor.

I cut my three yards of ribbon at the 24-inch mark, and set aside the small piece. I centered the larger ribbon piece on top, pinning it in place, and encasing the folded raw edge of the bib.

I stitched the ribbon to the apron, starting with the bottom edge, making sure the bib was caught in the stitching, and repeated for the top edge.

I stitched the smaller ribbon to the top corners of the bib as shown.

I almost stopped there, but I thought the apron could use a pocket.

The pocket was made from the remaining 10-inch piece of towel. I pressed the raw edge one inch to the wrong side, and stitched it in place.

I pinned the pocket to the center of the apron, and then stitched all around the sides and bottom. I also added two lines of stitching to separate the pocket into three sections.

Ta da!

“Me? Clean the kitchen? In this outfit?”

I do really like this… I think I will play around with the top section so that I can wear it more comfortably. I am thinking maybe a well-placed dart, or some elastic at the top might help. Or maybe the top edge should be folded over and made into a casing for the ribbon.

Once I’m done messing with this apron, I have my eye on the blue striped towels in my kitchen for some further experimentation…