Embroidered Kitchen Towels

Hi there, it’s Audrey from Cotton & Bourbon sharing a quick project idea for a hostess or holiday gift! When it comes to gifting around the holidays, I enjoy making items that can be used year-round. I keep a small box of pre-washed white cotton items (kitchen towels, cloth napkins, baby onesies, etc.) that I use as a blank canvas, either for fabric dyeing or embroidery! I couldn’t resist adding a glass of bourbon and “Cheers” embroidery to these kitchen towels!

For this project, I used the embroidery module for the BERNINA 770 QE, medium size hoop, two white 28×28 inch flour sack kitchen towels, iron-on and tear away interfacing, polyester thread, embroidery needle, and the digital embroidery design. This was my first time using the embroidery on this machine, and it was so easy to get fantastic results. The machine tells me what size hoop is needed based on the embroidery design. The design was very clear on the big touch screen, and I could use the stitch length/stitch width knobs or the +/- buttons on the touchscreen to adjust the placement of the design.

I positioned the embroidery design in the bottom right corner of each towel. See below for the position of each finished design in the hoop! The first design, “Cheers”, uses one color thread, took roughly 8 minutes to stitch, and measures 2.3 x 3.5 inches.

The second design, the bourbon glass, uses 5 thread colors, took roughly 30 minutes to stitch (20 minutes for stitching time, 10 minutes for thread changes), and measures 2.6 x 3.3 inches.

Finally, remove the towel from the hoop and tear away the interfacing. Press the towel and the project is done! Once I gathered all materials, these took less than one hour to complete. Since both designs are similar in size, they make an excellent pair as a gift! I’ll stack them, wrap them in ribbon, and gift them at an upcoming holiday outing! Cheers!