My "Confection Collection"

I just finished this group of appliqued dishtowels. I am calling them "My Confection Collection". The towels above were inspired by the fantastic and unbelievably cute paper pieced designs found at Pink Penguin. (See my favorite blog list at left for a link)

I got some of this great cream colored muslin and decided to do dish towels with it.  It's my first time to do anything other than white.

I am loving the pleated ruffle thing. I got the idea from some dish towels I picked up at a flea market. I thought I would do a little tutorial on how I make these towels.

Obviously, I started by cutting the muslin to size and hemming the edges.

Next, I chose my design, cut it out and fused it where I wanted it.

Then I appliqued them on by using a blanket stitch and a stem stitch with embroidery floss.

After hemming my strip of fabric that was twice as long as the edge of my towel, I began pleating. I made a little card board guide so that my pleats would be even.

Next, I pinned them to the right side of the towel and stitched. Then I flipped them down and found a stitch on my machine that would finish off and enclose the raw edge that would be on the wrong side.

I then pressed the edge and then top stitched a row just the width of my pressure foot to finish off the dishtowel. The results are above.  Thank you so much for visiting me and happy sewing!