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How To Sew Tea Towels

By Lizzsews

Here’s how you can sew a set of tea towels! You can embroider and/or use decorative stitches on these if you’d like to, it’s really up to you! This is a super fun project and makes amazing gifts!




These tea towels are a great quick and easy project for all skill levels!


What you will need:

  • Cotton, one fat quarter (18” x 21”)
  • Rotary cutter and cutting mat (or scissors)
  • Pins
  • Iron and ironing board 
  • Measuring tape
  • Sewing thread
  • Sewing machine
  • Machine sewing needle, 80/12
  • Optional: embroidery machine
  • Optional: embroidery thread and tear away or cut away stabilizer
  • Optional: embroidery design
  • Optional: embroidery thread
  • Optional: machine embroidery needle, 75/11


The steps:


   1. Iron the fabric. 



Tea towels are often 18” x 28” but when making your own you can choose your own sizes. One-quarter of a meter is the perfect size to not waste fabric!


   2. If you are not using a fat quarter, cut a piece about 18” x 21” or 18” x 22” depending on how wide your fabric is. After straightening and cutting my fat quarter fabric’s edges, it ended up being a bit smaller and was around 17” x 21”


   3. Fold the edges of the fabric over and iron in place. 



   4. Fold the edges of the fabric over one more time and iron. Pin in place. 



   5. Sew along these edges with either a straight stitch or a decorative stitch. 



   6. On the corners, continue to sew straight, backstitch till you get in line with the edge on the other side. Pivot the presser foot horizontally, backstitch and continue to sew along. Repeat this for each corner






   7. Optional: if you’d like to feel free to embroider your tea towel! Embroider it how you would any other cotton fabric. My fabric was already full of fun designs, so I opted out of the embroidery part. 


Here’s how you can fold your tea towel to look nice at the table:


   1. With the finished side down, fold the tea towel together horizontally. 



   2. Fold the bottom up about 2” 



   3. Fold the bottom over one more time to create a pocket



   4. Flip the fabric over and make about a 1” vertical fold on left side 



   5. Fold the right side over to meet the fold and tuck the fold into the pocket




   6. Fold the top of the fabric down to meet the bottom 



   7. Flip the fabric over and your tea towel is complete!





Thank you for reading this article! I would love to see your creations in Lizzsew's Facebook group! Don’t forget to leave a comment and let me know how your tea towel went!
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