brown bobbin: Making of an Owl Towel

A couple months back I was inspired to make some hand embroidered tea towels after seeing some really cute ones at Anthropologie.

Here is how I made mine.

Here are my supplies which included a good cup of coffee.

First I drew my owl on my fabric, cut it out with a seam allowance of about 1/4 inch. Then I slit small notches to ease the fabric at corners and on curves when hemming.

I hand sewed my owl onto my towel tucking under my 1/4 inch seam allowance. These pictures are pretty horrible, but there is some exposed edges of fabric at some of the corners. I just put a tiny drop of Fray Check on any of these edges then I can go crazy washing it and not have to worry about it falling apart.

I got mine at JoAnn craft stores.

Next, I drew the details on the owl and gave him a nice branch to be perched on. I just use a pencil for all my drawing. I'm sure there is some special pen or marker that can be used for this but pencil works just fine. Once all the embroidery is done, the pencil won't show.

I used a running stitch for all of my embroidery except for a satin stitch was used for the beak. I seriously had no idea what these stitches were called so I had to turn to my handy dandy reference book.

I forgot where I scored this book, probably a thrift store, yard sale or the Bookman, but anyways it is one of the best books on needlecraft. It was first published in 1959 and then again in 1971. The pictures and projects are the best. It is 548 pages of magic about every needlecraft you can think of. Seriously! It touches on the usuals such as sewing, crocheting, needlepoint, embroidery and such, but then if I were ever interested in rug making, macrame, tatting and netting I would be set. Who knows, that may be my next project.

As you can see, my poor book had probably sat on a shelf for the last 40 years so when I began thumbing through it the binding cracked and it is falling apart.
So bummed.