Unpaper Towels

It's a been a rough couple of weeks for me as my brain injury is causing some problems. So instead of doing fun things like blogging, I've been doing a lot of sleeping and resting. But I am happy to report that I finished the first of my 2013 Pinterest Challenges: The Un Paper Towel. 

What are Unpaper Towels? Unpaper towels are cloths designed to look like disposable paper towels. It wasn't that long ago that I'd go through a roll of paper towels every month or so. Then I discovered Lysol wipes and used them everywhere. As I started turning green, I realized that not were those wipes wasteful, but also full of chemicals. 

It wasn't an overnight switch. I started by putting out cloth towels and hiding the paper towels in the pantry. Soon it became more convenient to grab the cloth. Then we started using cloth napkins at the table instead of paper towels or napkins. Around this time, my son was old enough to learn where the clothes were stored and he naturally began looking for them when he had a mess to clean up. 

We've been using cloth in our kitchen with homemade cleaners for quite a while now, but I liked the idea of having pretty matching clothes. I was also looking for an easy project to learn to sew. These fit the bill perfectly.

This was my very first sewing project since my high school class over (cough) 20 (cough) years ago. I picked up a $39 sewing machine at Big Lots a few months ago and it has been sitting patiently in my linen closet waiting for me to open the box. 

I'm not sure if it's because I'm older or because of my brain injury, but I don't learn new things as easily as I used to. I used to be able to read a manual and I'd understand how to operate something. Now, I learn best when someone can walk me through the steps. My new appliances, driving to a new place, figuring out my sewing machine, it doesn't matter. Enter my new best friend: Nicole, who generosity offered to make the unpaper towels with me. 

First step: we went to Joann to pick out supplies. For this project, our instructions said we needed 1/2 yard each of terry and flannel fabrics to make ten 10" x 10" towels. (As it turned out, we made 12" x 12" towels, because Nicole had a 12" square template. The slightly larger towels meant that we were only able to make six towels with this amount of fabric, with a long narrow piece left over. If you want 10-12 12" towels, I'd suggest getting the full yard). There wasn't a great variety of fabric to choose from that matched the grayish green of our kitchen, especially with the terry, so I went with the same lime green that seems to be so popular in kitchen supplies these days. For the flannel, I found a cute bike pattern that seemed fitting for our Dutch family.

There was a much wider selection of thread, so it was easy to find a matching spool. We also bought a strip of (way too much) velcro. 

Because I was brand spanking new to sewing, I also bought some pins and a fabric cutter. Back when I was in high school, we cut with a scissors, but this cutter was $10 well spent!

We spent some time looking at quilting squares to make cutting the squares easier. But I balked a paying $25+ for something I might not use again. (I later found one for much less on Amazon). I decided to look around at a few other craft stores, and I came up with a great solution when a worker at another store gave a piece of cardboard from their scrapbook paper stacks. Perfect!

Two weeks later, Nicole and I were able to get together to work on our project! We had each washed our fabric and were ready to go.

Step one. Use the template and rotary cutter to cut out 6 squares each of terry and flannel fabric. The cutter was super easy to use, and my free template was (no) money well spent. I used our photo mat so I wouldn't scratch our table (more). Nicole had a bigger mat, which I think would be a great investment for future projects.

My cuts were not always as nice as the photo above, but this really was the perfect first project. After all, I'm just making pretty rags! Here's the stack of squares when I was done. And you can get a peek at my cute little machine. I should have taken a picture of it!

I think this is why the instructions from A Blossoming Life said to make 10" squares. I'm not sure what I'll do with this extra fabric. 

Step two: pin together one piece of flannel and one piece of flannel. Make sure the print side of the flannel is on the inside. 

This is the point at which I realized that I didn't cut my pieces exactly even. 

Step 3: Thread the machine. Nicole was kind enough to do this for me the first time. My machine has numbers to show the whole process, which made it easy for me to thread the machine later. My son was very interested in this process. 

Step 4: Sew the two pieces together, but leave about a 3" gap so you can pull the fabric right side out. Yes, I forgot a couple of times and had to use my seam ripper to cut out a few inches. (Fun fact: I already had a seam ripper in my kitchen. It works great for opening up plastic around bottles, CD cases (remember those), and anything else with a tightly wrapped seal. 

It took me a little bit to get a feel for my machine so I could sew in a straight line. 

Step 5: Turn out fabric. It took a bit of tugging, but by the last one, I was able to work with a 2" hole. I followed A Blossoming Life's tip to trim the corners to make this step easier. 

One down, five to go. Some people might iron at this point, but I just smoothed down the seam with my fingers.

It almost looks like I know what I'm doing!

Step 6: Sew over the whole thing again to make it pretty. My corners are not so pretty. I had a hard time figuring out how far to go before turning my fabric. 

Step 7: Sew a line diagonally across the towel. This will keep the towel flat after washing. 

Step 8: Repeat for the rest of the towels.

This was our finishing point of the day. All that we had left was the velcro. Nicole and I decided that would be a good job to do in our homes while watching a movie.

Two weeks later, I got back to it. I put the fuzzy half on the flannel side, and the scratchy half on the terry side. I found that hand sewing the velcro on was much harder than the cutting and sewing part. 

Another option is to use snaps instead of velcro, like Thrifty Nifty Mommy did in this post. I think I like the snap idea better than the velcro because it makes a neater finished product, but it required snap pliers, another purchase I wasn't willing to make until I knew if I like sewing or not. 

Don't these look nice?

UnPaper Towels by Thifty Nifty Mommy

I opted to put squares of velcro only at the top and bottom of each towel because by this point, I was pretty sure that I would be storing these in my cloth drawer instead of cluttering up my counter. But for the sake of this post, I plugged away.

Halfway done!

Completely done! Most directions say to wrap the towels around an empty paper towel holder. Since we haven't bought paper towels for at least two years, I skipped the tube. 

Flip side.

For now, the towels are sitting on my baking counter, but as they are used and washed, I'm definitely putting them in my cloth drawer. 

Verdict:

With the exception of the velcro or snaps, these unpaper towels are very easy to make, even for a beginner. Without the fasteners, the whole project could easily be done in one afternoon. It's a pretty way to go paperless in your kitchen. They've quickly become my son's favorite napkin.

Of course, if you don't want to take the trouble to make these yourself, you can find over a thousand options on Etsy!

Update:
I decided I really don't like to have towels on the counter so we bought this Umbra paper towel holder and installed it on the cabinet door under the prep sink.

This works much better for us!

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