Holiday Recipe Towels from Lunch Box Quilts
With the Holidays quickly approaching, do you anticipate finding yourself in need of a quick and easy gift that is beyond the normal and one of a kind? Make sure to read to the end to see what fun ideas you can make!
Might I suggest a gift that will not soon be forgotten? How about a kitchen towel that is lovingly embroidered with a delicious holiday recipe? It's even a real recipe!
Holiday Recipe Towels is a multi-format embroidery design collection from Lunch Box Quilts. In this collection you will find 10 different recipe designs that will surely make your mouth water. Also included are tips to ensure beautiful embroidered results and the instructions to add fabric trims to the towels. The results are spectacular! In addition the the given instructions that come with the designs, here are some of my suggestions:
Mark your towel for the center of the design
Hoop the towel and wash-away stabilizer
- Mark your towel lengthwise. On the end that you would like the embroidery design to be located, make a horizontal line that is seven inches up from the hem. The intersection of this horizontal and vertical lines will be the location for the center of the embroidery design
- Next hoop your towel and a piece of wash-away stabilizer. I like to use Floriani Wet 'n' Gone (white), it is stable and washes out nicely, Align the horizontal and vertical lines on your towel with the center marks on your embroidery hoop to make sure that it will stitch straight. I prefer to hoop both my project and my stabilizer when ever possible. In my experience, this give me the best results.
- Use a water-soluble topping
- Place the hoop onto the machine with the bulk of the extra fabric to the outside of the machine.
- On the top, use Floriani Water Soluble topping - this will allow the thread to lay nice on the surface of the towel and not be lost in the weave of the towel (clear). Baste into place with your machines basting stitch.
- For the lettering, use a 60-weight embroidery thread. This light-weight thread will produce crisp and clear embroidered lettering (I like the Floriani Micro threads – they are polyester and come in lots of colors).
- For the rest of the embroidery use a standard 40-weight embroidery thread. For items that will be laundered often, I prefer to use a polyester thread (they are color-fast even if bleached). If you were to use a lighter weight thread for the rest of the design, the areas would not fill in nicely.
- Once the embroidery is complete, rinse out the stabilizer. If you are having a tough time rinsing out your stabilizer and topping, try adding a bit of water softener.
- Choose the fabric you want for your towel's trim. The main piece is 2" wide and the accent is 1" wide that has been folded and pressed in half lengthwise.
- Stitch the accent piece to the top edge of the main piece and press the accent piece up.
- Un-stitch the bottom edge of your towel and stitch this edge to the bottom edge of the fabric strip, right side of the strip to the wrong side of the towel.
- Flip the trim piece to the front and press. Then top stitch the edges to secure in place.
Fun to make and a great gift too!
In addition to the towels, consider adding tasty tidbits to make your gift even more memorable. If you like (and have the time), create the recipe and give it along with the coordinating towel. Several of the recipes lend themselves very nicely to giving along with the completed towel. What a nice gift that won’t soon be forgotten (although you may have to think twice about giving a Turducken). Here are the two recipes that I made:
Nutcracker Spiced Pecans RecipeIngredients:
• 1 egg white
• 1 tbs water
• 5 c pecan halves
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt, cloves, nutmeg
Preparations:
Beat egg white with water. Stir in pecans, until moist. In a separate bowl mix sugar, cinnamon, salt, cloves, & nutmeg. Add pecans to mixture, stir until well coated (note: I put the dry ingredients in a large zip lock bag, then poured the pecans into it, sealed the bag, and mixed).
Spread on a lined cookie sheet & bake for one hour at 225F.
Peppermint BarkIngredients:
• 2 lbs white chocolate
• 30 small peppermint candy canes
Preparations:
Smash candy canes into ¼" pieces.
Melt chocolate in double boiler. Stir in crushed candy canes. Pour mixture onto parchment lined cookie sheet.
Refrigerate for 1 hour (Once it began to set, I used a knife to score lines in the bark so that the piece size and shape could be regulated a bit. I wanted to have longer sticks that I could put into a coffee mug for a complete gift).
Break into pieces.
If time is scarce and you don't think you'll be able to complete a recipe, gather the ingredients for the recipe so that it can be easily assembled by its recipient:
Not much time? Gift the ingredients.
Present your gift in a clever container like a whimsical jar or a cute mug. Not only will your gift be thoughtful and reusable, but it will be tasty too!
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Use a cute mug to present your yummy gift
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Spiced Nuts, Yum!
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Happy Sewing,
Reva
