Alabama Dish Towels

The "Alabama Stitch Book" has been making the rounds of some of the crafty blogs I read, and after seeing several cute projects I decided it was time to check it out from the library.

Most of the projects in the book are made using old t-shirts and are based on a "reverse applique" technique.  How it works is, you stencil a design onto fabric with paint, stitch two pieces of fabric together at the edge of the stencil, then cut off the top layer of fabric to get a sort of stain glass effect.  (Here's a close-up picture to give you a better idea.)

I wanted to try something easy to start, so I decided to make these dish towels.  I used two XL t-shirts for the main part of the towel (the white and gray parts) and a smaller blue t-shirt for the underneath bits.  I really like the way they turned out, and the t-shirt material is great for wiping up.  If I can collect enough old shirts, I may try a skirt next.

Comments

[Nancy]

How do I stencil dish towels? Is there a treatment to put on them so it won't wash out? Thanks
Kelly