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Reusable kitchen towels upcycled from old towel - a tutorial



I've been wanting to make these for ages and finally got 
A Round Tuit!

It's not my original idea and there are other tutorials out there - with neater edges and prettier fabric, but I wanted to show you how I made mine simply and quickly using an old towel!

I have several of these kiddie hooded towels that my girls used to love but have now grown out of:

They are quite faded worn, but still perfectly good towels - so I had to find another use for them! This seemed to suit perfectly!

So here's how to make an old towel into useful re-usable kitchen roll!

You will need:
An old towel
Sew-in Velcro
Scissors

First cut your towel into squares.
I cut mine to 20 x 20 cm (8 x 8") -
 I got about 16 squares out of one towel.
If you have an overlocker (serger) you could finish off the edges to prevent fraying.

Cut small pieces of Velcro around 2 cm (approx 1") long.
Pin and Stitch 2 pieces of one side of the Velcro (hook) to the top and bottom left corners of a towel square; and 2 pieces of the other side of the Velcro (loop) to the top and bottom right corners of the underside of the square like this:

Stitch all the way around each piece of Velcro and also a cross in the middle to hold it securely in place:

Repeat this for each square of towel you cut.
Now you can simply connect each square together using the Velcro pieces to make one long roll of reusable kitchen towels!
If you have a towel holder - you can glue 2 pieces of Velcro (or use sticky Velcro if you have it) to the holder to attach one towel to.


Then keep attaching the squares and rolling them around the holder:

For the downloadable PDF version of this tutorial, click here.

Now I still have four of these hooded towels left. But I only need one roll of reusable kitchen towels since the towels will just be washed and erm...reused! :)

The others I think I'll just cut into larger squares and use for ever useful floor cloths!

What have you used your old towels for?



18 comments:

  1. Great idea! never thought of reusing towels this way. We tear old towels for floor mopping :)

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  2. Cool idea, I could have saved so much that I had spent on paper towel rolls and be Eco friendly as well!

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  3. Are you worried about fraying and thready messes?

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    1. Yes Randi, the towels do fray a little each time they are washed - but since this was a quick and easy upcycle - I figured I'd rather clip a few threads off after washing rather than spend the time finishing off all the edges.
      For a more durable prettier set - you can cut them all exactly the right size, finish off the edges and they will look neater and last much longer!
      Maybe I'm just lazy - but I'm already using old worn towels, just extending their life a little!

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  4. Excellent idea... I have more towels than I need (not sure how that happened!) so I think I might give this a go

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  5. Ah ha! This is clever and I have a zillion old towels. Thanks for the light bulb and the tutorial!

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  6. Hi Jill. I saw this done once before and I thought it was such a fantastic idea. I don't think they used old towels either. I love it. I'm featuring it at tomorrow's Thriving on Thursday linky party. Thanks so much for linking up.

    Anne xx

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  7. This is an idea which I had never thought, I love it! Thanks for the tutorial!
    Marisa from
    http://passionetcouture.blogspot.ca/

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  8. Absolutely love this! Much neater way of keeping them than in my rag bucket! Thanks!

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  9. I love this idea! I'm going to be super lazy and do this with my existing kitchen 'towels' which are really old washcloths. They are currently taking up valuable space in my cupboard. Now I can get them more in sight of others in the household. I do tear up old towels and use them in the kitchen as kitchen towels--the rectangular size.

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    1. Great idea to use ready made 'towels'. If everyone can see them they'll be more likely to use them.

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  10. What a great idea!! I'm just now seeing this - and gotta do it today!!!! Thanks!

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  11. This is soooooo good! I haven't bought oaper towels in decades, love trees too much. I do have stacks of dish towels but they're not always quite what is needed, like for grubbier jobs.
    Using old towels makes it much easier for thise jobs, and having then all hooked and rolled means they'll be used, too.
    Thank you so much!

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