continuous hand towel

July 19th, 2010

I was sick of the stupid bathroom towel always ending up on the floor. So I whipped up this bad boy in the spirit of those awesome old fashioned public bathroom continuous towel thing-a-ma-jigs (which I can seem to find on the internet; have they ceased to exist?).  All it took was a little patchwork bias tape to cover the raw edges and velcro to join the ends.  You could use buttons or snaps, but I could not because my monkey of a son would then use it as his personal bathroom swing.

The towel fabric is a waffle weave muslin that I found when I was looking for fabric for the kids’ summer towels or summer robes. I only bought a quarter of a yard so I could see if it would soften when I washed it. And it did, nicely too. Then I went to get some more, only this time I went to Joann’s instead of the fancy fabric shop, and when I washed the three yards of it I got, it came out super thick and shrunk up (see above).  Does Joann’s just carry inferior everything, or did I wash it wrong? Has anyone worked with waffle weave muslin before and have some insight?  Because I really like how the bathroom towel turned out and had visions of making kitchen towels for everyone for christmas out of this stuff

Wouldn’t it be great in the kitchen? I suppose linen or terry cloth would work just as well.  I’m going to have to use the shrunk up stuff to make the kids’ robes; I just hope they don’t make them look like little sumo wrestlers.

Posted in sewing.

32 Responses to continuous hand towel

  1. Rae says:

    You are brilliant Meg.

  2. Holly says:

    I made one too! Found a $.99 waffle-y bathtowel at a thrift store, sewed the long edges together and turned it inside out, sewed velcro to the two short ends, and hung it up. Quick and simple! Not as pretty as yours, but it’ll do the job. Working great so far!

  3. What a great idea. I have had some of those with the crocheted handles but they are really so dowdy. This is much better. I’m happy to report that they still use continuous towels (in the machine) at my daughter’s school here in Germany. I always wonder how they get clean,though.

  4. alison says:

    What a great idea! (the continuous towel that is…)

    About the waffle weave fabric… While I definitely agree that most of the fabric Joanns carries is Cr*P, my understanding is that thickening up like that is what it is Supposed-To-Do. It is woven flat, with the intention that when washed hot and dried, the floats (looser threads on the surface) will shrink up and create a texture like a waffle. The texture makes it much more absorbent. I fell in love with towels like that in Italy years ago, and finally found some, they were very spendy, from a posh bath linens shop.

  5. samlamb says:

    so smart! this will totally foil milo’s plan of ripping the towel off the bar every time he goes near the bathroom.

    darn that closet-bound sewing machine. i. want. to. sew.

  6. shisomama says:

    Brilliant! I’m always picking the towels off the floor as well, so this will be a great solution.

    I remember one time during a sewing class the teacher told us that the fancy fabric stores usually get first-quality fabrics, and that Joann’s usually gets 2nd or 3rd- quality stuff, even if it’s in the same pattern. She told us to stay away! And I’ve often found that she’s right.

  7. Courtney says:

    oh my gosh i love this idea!!