Tea Towel Projects

I have been wanting to post about a few tea towel projects because handmade gifts are on my mind and I think tea towels on their own or transformed are a fun gift which  can be easily personalized for the lucky recipient.  Recently, I was fortunate to find a 1972 calendar tea towel at Value Village.  I have been looking for a 1972 calendar tea towel for a long time (like almost 40 years…) to transform  into a pillow.  Here is the tea towel.

I didn’t have the courage to cut it up and change the size, so i used the full length, added a zipper, and found a perfect fitting Ikea down insert. 

The reverse is Michael Miller (Beatnik) fabric.
I love tea towels. I have a little collection of linen souvenir tea towels from the UK and Ireland which are well used and loved.
 
   















I have also been collecting  tea towel refashion ideas on my pinterest board.
My pal recently transformed a souvenir Royal Wedding Tea Towel into a stylish apron. Craft Stylish has put together a good tutorial on creating a tea towel apron here.  Another tip: If you happen to have the Amy Butler domestic goddess half apron pattern, the waist band and straps from that pattern often fit very well on horizontal souvenir tea towels. 
 
Here is another example of another clever refashion.  She took a Glanta Ikea tea towel (a great buy at 2 for $4.99) into another stylish apron. 

The Glanta tea towel has a vertical print so you can cut it to the desired length and then add a waist band in a complimentary fabric. The left over fabric from the Glanta (which will now be plain white) can be saved for another project or made into a smaller tea towel like in the photo (this one used Sew 4 Home’s fancy retro border technique).

So I hope you enjoyed these tea towel ideas. If you have any ideas that you have spotted, please let me know so that I can add them to my pinboard.  Also, if anyone has an attachment to the year 1979, I would be happy to send you this 1979 calendar tea towel.  Just let me know in the comments by November 24th along with your email address or how to find you. The towel  is on the smaller size, but perfect condition and now prewashed. {If more than one person expresses interest, I will draw a name }.

Have a great day,

This project is linked to

and the Point of View Link Party.