What I Learned When I Embroidered a Tea Towel

This year for Christmas, my quilt guild is doing a Tea Towel exchange. I picked up this adorable kit from my local quilt shop and thought that was going to be my exchange present. But I fell in love with it, so maybe I will have to find something else! 

This is a kit from Dunroven House. The instructions are pretty easy. It came with everything but the thread.

They include a pattern transfer paper with the pattern printed on it. So I only needed to iron it on. Make sure you get it on the towel dark. I had a hard time seeing the pattern at some points. 

They had lots of instructions for what color of thread to use and what kind of stitches to use. My biggest worry was making sure the back looked good. On a tea towel you can't really hide the mess on the back!

So I used a backstitch pretty much the whole time. I took tiny stitches and focused on how the back was looking as I stitched. 

I did have to change a few things up to reduce the mess. For example, on the green vine there is supposed to be little red berries. But I decided little green berries would be ok too. That would reduce the thread changes and the bulk from the knots.

 Here is the back!! 

Generally, I tied off the beginning and ends by wrapping it around previous stitches a few times. I did tie a few knots where there happened to be a beginning and an end at the same spot. 

 I think I travelled too far between the P and the L. I should have stopped and started on all individual letters. It adds to the work and time, but it gives a better finished look. 

For these little blue flowers, there was supposed to be little yellow centers. But there was already enough going on here. You can see how I wrapped the blue thread around the green thread to start and stop.  

All in all, I think it turned out great. 

Now I just need to decide if this one is mine and I should do another one, or use this one as my exchange...

I think I need to get some more tea towels!

Have fun quilting!