Christmas Tea Towels Recycled

Thanks to Jenny of Elefantz and her January Tea Towel Challenge to make a tea towel into something new, I have recycled these lovely christmas gifts into oven mitts...using a bit of origami fabric folding and a little sewing. By folding them I gained some padding, thus you don't get burnt handling oven items.

I have received some lovely Christmas tea towels over the years and always put them into general circulation - I like a bit of christmas all year round :-)


Here's how I made them - all three took about 30 minutes - cool :-)

Lay your tea towel flat - right sides down

Fold the long edge over 1/3 and flip the ears back

Repeat with the other side folding over the top of the first fold - flip the ears back

Sew across close to the edge, repeat at the other end

Fold the end over, coming past your sewed edge by about 2 inches and pin the points down - repeat at the other end. These edges could be overstitched later to hide the folds - up to you.

Place a pin half way along the long edge - this pins the edge of the tea towel to the edge.
Then sew right round the edge - the walking foot is a blessing, there are a lot of layers there, take it slowly.

You are then left with a pocket at each end. If you like you can then catch down the edges of the pocket, but I haven't bothered at this stage - might do it in front of the TV tonight.

Happy Sewing, Jennifer