Petits Four Towels Tutorial

While at Market I was lucky enough to get a couple free Moda Petits Fours.  You know...those little 2 1/2" square bundles.  The Moda Designers were handing them out in their booths and I was lucky enough to acquire a couple. 

So yesterday I'm sitting there admiring how darn cute these little petit fours are and trying to decide what to do with them when I had a lightbulb moment.  Use them to decorate kitchen towels!  And here is the result of my efforts.

Aren't they cute?!  The fabric is Pat Sloan's new line called

Eat Your Fruits n' Veggies which I thought was perfect for kitchen towels. 

And wouldn't they make great gifts to give someone?

The moment they were finished I knew this would be a great quick and easy project that others might like to do.  Did I take pictures of my progress as I went along to share with you?  NOPE...what a ding dong.

But I did on the second little bundle.  So here my little tutorial on how to make these cute little towels.

PETITS FOUR TOWELS

For this project you'll need the following:

• Two plain kitchen towels...I purchased inexpensive ones from WalMart
• One Petits Four...this time I'm using Chateau Rouge by French General
• One pkg of Rick Rack...medium or jumbo preferable
• Thread for quilting and thread to match rick rack and towel colors
• Roxanne's Glue Baste-It
• Dritz Fray Check

To begin start by measuring your towel's width to know how many squares across your'e going to need.  My towel is 15 1/2" so I'll be using eight across.  You'll want to the sewn squares be wider than your towel after they are sewn together.

Here are a couple of possible layouts...squared and offset.  Sew the squares together as desired and press.

(Shhhh...let's pretend you see eight across, not seven) 

Next measure 1 1/2" up from the bottom of the towel and lay your sewn piece down on top of the towel centering it so that you have an equal amount laying over the edge of each side.  Trim the excess on each side leaving 3/8" for turning under.



Next, turn your side edges under and press.  Don't know turn under the top and bottom of your sewn piece. 

NOTE: If you're using a towel that has any polyester in it like mine, don't forget to turn down your iron or you'll melt your towel. Ask me how I know?

Before you begin quilting your towel, change your top thread to the thread you selected for your quilting.  For this project I selected tan.  Now for your bobbin.  Your bobbin thread should match the color of your towel because you don't want your stitches showing up on the back of your towel.

 To quilt your towels start by sewing a 1/4" from the edge of the sew piece for the top/bottom and 1/8" from the edge for the side.  Be sure to pin or glue baste your sewn piece to the towel sew it doesn't move on your while you're sewing.

Once you've secured those edges you can quilt as desired. For my towel I did a simple diamond pattern. 

Next, cut two lengths of rick rack slightly wider than your towel.  With Glue Baste-It, attach your rick rack to the edge of  the top and bottom of you sewn piece. 

Make sure the raw edge of your sewn piece is completely covered.  The bottom inside curve of your rick rick should just come to the edge of the sew piece and the ends of your rick rack should be hanging over the edges of your towel.


Now put Fray Check on your rick rack where it meets the edges of the towel.  Once the Fray Check is dry you can trim off the excess.

Next, change your top thread to match your rick rack and then sew it down to the towel with a straight stitch.  Because this towel is to be washed and I don't want the rick rack curling up, I sewed it down following the curves.

And just like that you're done!

I hope you enjoy making these towels as much as I did.

Till next time...

P.S.  I know what everyone is getting for Christmas this year...LOL.

 



I'm baaaack...

...from Spring Market.  And it was fabulous!  Here are a few of the highlights

(aka the moments when I remembered I had a camera with me).

Riley Blake Booths

Songbird by Carina Gardner

Dress Up Days by Doohikey Designs

Millie's Closet by Bee in My Bonnet

Don't you just love Lori's hat pillow?!

On Friday I had the chance to meet Mary Engelbreit and she gave me a signed print! 

Mary has a super cute new fabric line called Flutterby coming out with Andover Fabrics.

And here are a couple pictures from the Free Spirit booth...love this quilt hanging the picture!

I soooooo want to make a quilt with feathers like this on it!

And how about the Michael Miller booth?  They always have the greatest themed booths. 

This year it was a circus theme where you saw...

Elephants

clowns dressed liked lions?

designer booths

and quilts!

Art Gallery with the most awesome wall of color I've ever seen!

Under the Big Top by Main Street Market Designs for Benartex

And finally all things Moda...

a fabulous apron made from Basic Grey fabrics

Mama Said Sew by Sweetwater

some Fig Tree love

and last but not least Cuzco by Kate Spain.

 

Well that's it for the fabric company booths. 

In my defense, the Moda pictures are less than fabulous because their booths were always packed with people making it near impossible to get photos. Packed booths are a good thing...right?

Next up...pattern designers, purchased goodies, and GIVEAWAYS! 

That's right...GIVEAWAYS...plural!

So stay tuned...

One last post before...

...I head off for Kansas City in the morning and I couldn't be more excited! 

There are so many exciting and interesting things to see at Market!  If you could go to Market what and/or who would you be most excited to see?  And what things would you be most interested in purchasing?  Fabric?  Patterns?  Notions?

Share your thoughts with me because who knows...maybe some of the things you mention will come back with me from Market for my 350 Followers Giveaway happening next week.

Till next time...

And then they were gone...almost

This morning I came out to find only this little guy left. 

His siblings have left the nest and are no where to be found.  They will continue to live on

the ground until their wings grow fully in.  The male cardinal will take over the feeding

and caring of the babies while the female goes off to build her next nest.

Thank you for all the wonderful comments about the babies. 

I'm glad you've enjoyed watching them grow each day as much as I have.

Babies - Day 8

Babies - Day 7

Well it's day 7 since I noticed the hatchlings.  So we are 3 or less days away from

them leaving the nest.  I still can't get over how fast they are growing...simply amazing. 

Babies - Day 6

Babies - Day 5

It just amazes me how fast they are growing!  And while I'll be sad when they leave

their nest, I'm glad that they'll be leaving it before I take off for Market. 

Weekend Report

Over the weekend I made flowers...19 to be exact.

I've had the hexagons prepped and ready to go for months just sitting there in a box. I'm sure by now they're very old news in blogworld. But that's okay because I still enjoy making them.  At the moment I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them but I have a few ideas. 

I have another 21 flowers prepped and ready for the trip to Kansas City if I can wait till then... probably not.  I'd prep more but I'm out of hexagons and need to order more.

For anyone interested in the threads I use they are Superior Threads' Frosted Donut I and II (100% cotton) and a SuperBob filled with Bottom Line Thread (100% polyester).  I find that both kinds work well for both English paper piecing and applique. 

Each ring holds 35 bobbins and each bobbin is the equivalent of a small spool of Gutermann thread.  Can you imagine toting around that many spools of thread with your projects to a bee?  And between the three rings there are very very few color repeats.  The only repeats are I/II and the Bottom Line.

And as an "oh by the way", I wanted to show you a vase/pot I started to make.  I've been meaning to sew the two halves together for a few weeks now but it has to be hand sewn and I keep forgetting to go buy a pair of needle nose pliars to help me reach the needle when it's inside the bowl.  Maybe this week I'll remember.

P.S.  Back to the hexagons for just a sec, if you're interested in purchasing paper pieces, you can find them at Paper Pieces where you find all sorts of shapes in different sizes along with free project sheets and how to's.  Right now they are having an anniversary sale through May 12th so I'm off to buy 750 - 3/4" hexagons for $10.00.

Babies - Day ?

Let's just call this Day 4 since this is the fourth day I've seen them. 

I should have kept a closer eye...lazy photographer.

We have BABY CARDINALS!

I don't know exactly what day these little guys were born. 

But they went from this (picture taken on Frida)...

 to this (picture taken this morning) in two days!

Can you believe how much bigger they got in just TWO DAYS?  It's no wonder

they leave the nest after only ten days.  If you click on the second photo,

you see their little wing feathers better.  It's just crazy!!!

We're expecting...sorta!

Outside under our covered carport sits a shelf.  And on that shelf sits a nest with three little eggs...cardinal eggs to be exact.  My husband found the nest sitting on top of his ladder last

weekend.  And being how he needed the ladder, he carefully moved the nest to the shelf. 

We weren't sure the parents of the eggs would come back

but she did.  Here's she is sitting on her nest.  In an effort not to disturb her any more

than I have to I took her picture from far away with my telephoto lense.

With any luck we should have baby cardinals in less than a week.  And ten days after that

they will leave the nest and continue to be fed by the male for another two weeks. 

Cool...huh?!  Who knew they would leave the nest so soon.