Restoring Old Towels

Please welcome Rachel of Little bits of love on Instagram to my blog today!

Today on the earth day blog hop I am excited to talk about a saving step you can take to help extend the life of some of the most used items in my house and probably yours as well: Towels. My household has tried to go low waste and we have switched out many of our single use items, including most paper products. Let's be real, sometimes towels feel like they aren’t meant to stand up to the day to day use of a household of four. 

We have a few towels that are starting to fray on the edges. It is frustrating as these are cosmetic imperfections and the towel is still functional. So it is time to use some items, as a quilter, I always have laying around - extra binding strips. This simple, 20-30 minute task can help you extend the life of your towels and adds a little fun flare as well. 

This blue hand towel and some extra binding I had left over are the perfect pair. 

To make binding, I usually follow Cluck Cluck Sews Binding Tutorial. I recommend taking a look here if you need a refresher or want to try making some binding yourself. 

Attach the binding to the front of the towel, with a ¼” seam all the way around. Occasionally, depending on how bad the towel is fraying on the sides you can either cut off the fraying or use a zigzag stabilizing stitch around the towel before attaching your binding.  Then, fold over and attach to the back. I personally have found using a zigzag stitch when securing it on the back is most helpful to make sure it is attached well. But really, any stitch will work. 

You see, by repurposing old binding left over (and probably too small of an amount to use on a quilt) and fixing the fraying edge of a towel you are keeping two things out of the trash can. You are finding and reusing the items you have around the house. It’s a win, for both you and mother nature. 

As a little giveaway I will be giving away some of my leftover binding strips I have over on Instagram this week. So headover to LittleBitsALove on instagram and follow along and enter. 

A little about me! My name is Rachel, I am the creator behind LittleBitsALove on instagram. I received my grandmother’s 1960’s sewing machine back in 2013 and immediately dove in head first to quilting. I made my first quilt for my husband. I took a break from sewing for a few years to start a family. When the pandemic hit, I was able to use my hoards of fabric to create headbands and masks for my coworkers and friends. It pulled me back to my machine and back into the quilting world. I can be found during the day being a stay at home parent to my two little kiddos. After bedtime however, I can usually be found in the sewing room listening to a podcast. If you want to follow along my sewing and quilting adventures I can be found on instagram at @littlebitsalove.