Salad Tea Towel - Completed!

I finished my salad tea towel!  And here is my "surprise" hem trim...

Ruffles! A double row of ruffles:

I love the way this trim finished this towel.  The green ruffle reminds me of curly lettuce so it is perfect for this towel's theme :)

I am really happy with the fabric color match to my embroidery floss too:

I have really learned a lot making this ruffle trim.

I followed directions from a basic sewing book.  There were so many options for making and attaching ruffles!  I knew I wanted a double layer ruffle and I wanted to sew the double layers in the center so that both edges of each layer would be free and ruffled.

To make the ruffles, I cut a strip out of each of the fabrics I wanted to use for the ruffles.  Factoring in the seam allowance,  I cut the bottom ruffle 1/2" wider then the top ruffle.  As for the length, both strips are the same length, but to allow ruffling, the instructions said to cut 3 times the finished length!  This is for a fully gathered ruffle.

I finished the edges of both of the strips:

Then I machine stitched two lines of stitches on each strip using a basting stitch:

Then I carefully pulled the basting stitch threads, gathering up all the length on each ruffle.

I pinned everything in place and sewed through all the layers with one line of stitching centered on the top ruffle.

I turned the ruffle strip ends under and hand stitched them in place:

I also decided to embellish the other end of the tea towel.

I used one of the border patterns from the Salad Fixings embroidery pattern packet:

and stitched it up!

I love this tea towel and I really like the ruffles.  I want to make this again and I really want to try out the other ruffle variations.

Progress report...

I have some progress to share on one of my salad wips.  The tea towel:

All of the embroidery is complete {I think - I may add a motif at the other end of the towel}.  I am really pleased with the stitching and colors:

Here is a closer look at the stitches, I used two rows of back stitch in two different greens for the lettuce leaves, split stitch for the tomato bodies and back stitch for their accents and green tops.

Now onto the hem.  I have two fabrics that match my floss colors.  You can probably guess what I hope to do using these two fabrics...

If I can figure out how!

 It will make a nice finish.

Here is a list of the floss colors I used for this project:

Acorn Embroidery Pattern Packet

I have finished a new embroidery pattern packet. This one is called "acorn" and features beautiful acorns and oak leaves. The packet has seven pages and includes tons of embellishment patterns and even two pages of border patterns.

I could hardly wait to start stitching up these patterns. My first project was a tea towel. I had some beautiful white cotton in my fabric stash but I wanted a fabric with a little more "fall" color so I dyed the white cotton in tea! To get the right color, I put the fabric in a bowl of water. I used about five tea bags and let the fabric sit in this overnight. Then I rinsed it, let it dry and transferred my pattern:

I started out with the colors you see in the above picture but didn't really like the look. I eventually took out the gold colored floss on the acorn tops and the sage green on the acorn bottoms. Instead, I used a combination of floss in green/sage green/mustard color for the acorn tops and two rows of two different browns for the acorn bottoms. I like the new look much better:

Then I hemmed the bottom with a running stitch and now have a fall-themed tea towel!

Tea Embroidery Pattern Packet

Here is what the pattern packet for the

"Tea" embroidery pattern looks like.

This packet turned out to be eight pages! There

is the introduction page, the main pattern and

then six pages of embellishment patterns. There are so many fun ways to draw teapots, cups and

all the tea accessories.

This is what the main pattern looks like all stitched up. I used the silver metallic floss for the tea tray to make it look like a silver tray. Metallic floss is SO difficult to stitch with but it just looks so beautiful when you are finished!
The covered sugar bowl and creamer were really fun to stitch. In the embellishment patterns, there is a sugar bowl with the lid removed and you can see all the sugar cubes.

So far, I have made two tea towels - one with the main pattern and one with this yellow diamond patterned teapot.

I just love the color combination on this tea towel -

here is a close up of the word Tea at the bottom of the towel.

And I am making this tea tray doily. I really love the way it is turning out!

I do think however that it needs some sort of finishing trim around the edge.

Cake

My new pattern is ready! This one is titled "Cake" and has a main pattern of three yummy looking cakes. I stitched the main pattern onto a tea towel and added some pom pom trim:

I think this pattern would also look really sweet on an apron.

I included plenty of embellishment patterns to the pattern packet to dress up any project.

This is an example of one of the embellishment patterns. I love this slice of cake! Notice the plate...the french knots make it look like a beaded-edge plate.

These are two more of the embellishment patterns that I stitched. I think i may incorporate them into border for a matching towel or maybe on some potholders!

The pattern packet has four pages of embellishment patterns so i have a lot of planning and stitching to do :)

Etsy shop updated!

I have updated my Etsy shop, the Zinnia embroidery pattern packet is now for sale! I hope you will take a look! Here is a picture of a towel I completed using the pattern.