Ruffly Goodness

Wanting a little something fru fru in the midst of the somewhat-mod-for-my-taste basement we've been renovating for over a year, I embellished some basic white towels in no time flat and for a grand total of six dollars for the newly updated bathroom.

I started with plain white bath towels from Wal-Mart. (six-dollars) and plain white hand towels that I already owned.

 

With white pima cotton fabric I already had on hand from some other sewing project, I laid it out, measured and marked off two inch strips.  Three for each bath towel and two for each hand towel.

I cut the strips with my favorite scalloped shears.

And then I sewed a large straight stitch down the center of each strip - leaving plenty of extra thread on each end.  Do not back stitch to lock the thread.  Very important!

Here you can see my "oh brother" machine settings.  This ninety dollar purchase made ten years ago has saved me thousands of dollars on curtains, pillows, and decorative items for my house.  "Oh brother" might just be the best investment I've ever made...

With the aforementioned machine settings, my machine actually ruffles the fabric itself.  Oh happy day!!!

When you get to the end of your strip, cut off the thread leaving lots of extra on the back end.  Again, do not back stitch at the end either.

Lay it out on the towel and adjust the ruffles (I had to spread them out) to match the width of your towel.  That's why you need all the extra thread on each end and wouldn't have wanted to back stitch.

Next, with the following machine settings (I put mine on a slight zig zag so as not to ruffle your towel) sew your ruffled strip on the towel.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat for the rest of your ruffles and towels.  For subsequent rows of ruffles, I stitched them on so that they would overlap into loads of ruffly goodness once complete.  To do so, I nearly butted up the bottom of the ruffle to the seam in the previous ruffle.  Like so...

And here's the final product.  Such a piece of cake.  And SO cheap!

A girl can never have enough ruffles in her life.

xoxo

Disclaimer: These towels are primarily for decorative purposes.  I have a plain, unembellished towel next to the sink and the shower down here will likely never be used.  I cannot say what might ensue on putting these beauties into the washing machine.  :-)

I'm thrilled to have been featured at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia!