We are excited to have Eileen Roche, Editor of Designs in Machine Embroidery share this content with you, which was originally posted on Eileen’s Machine Embroidery Blog: 

Vintage Elegance

Elevate a humble days-of-the-week towel set with charming embroidery, ruffled trim and ribbon.  The fun is in the making – truly – I had a blast working on this set of towels.  Hidden in a drawer for ages, the days-of-the-week towels popped into my mind just as I was scrambling for the perfect bridal shower gift for a young, kitchen-comfortable bride!

The bride, my niece Kim, has been an avid cook since she first learned how to make homemade pasta at the ripe old age of 8. And she’s got an arsenal full of kitchen equipment. So it’s natural I thought of her kitchen –and the joy she derives from cooking up concoctions in there when I wondered what gift I would give.

These towels are as charming as Kim. A multi-talented, humorous, intelligent woman, no plain-Jane simple terrycloth towels for her. Oh no, her towels need to make a statement – to shout to the world, this kitchen and cook are fun-loving serious foodies.

It started with adorable embroidery designs. A touch of vintage elegance, the utensil designs were snatched at www.emblibrary.com.  The collection name is “A Classic Kitchenware Design Pack.  I opened each one in Floriani software and had a bit of fun with the lettering. Did you know lettering doesn’t have to sit on a straight line? You can curve it, bend it, shape it any way you want.

My next post will give you the step-by-step instructions for adding the ruffles and ribbon. For now, let’s concentrate on the embroidery. Before you get started, take my advice and buy the ribbon to match the towels, then select the fabrics and finally the thread for the embroidery.  Finding the right ribbon was the biggest challenge – it’s easier to match everything to the ribbon instead of hunting for the perfect shade of ¾” wide ribbon.

In a nutshell, here are the steps. Buy the towels. Find the ribbon. Design the embroidery. Select the fabrics. Select the threads. Prewash the fabrics and towels (if you have the time). Stitch all embroidery. Make the ruffles. Sew the ruffles to each towel. Finish with the ribbon.

Measure the width of the towels. One third of that measurement is the limit for the width of each embroidery design. After creating the personalized embroidery designs, size them for the towels.

Open Embroidery Library design F8031 in Floriani software.  Size the design to the appropriate width.  Click on the Text icon and select the Diana-Vs font.  Type Celebrate! in the text window, click Apply.

Place the cursor over the center green circle and pull the circle down towards the spoon.

The text will curve. You can adjust the curve by sliding the circle.

Save the design.

Let’s step it up a bit by adding three words – Stir with Love.  Open design F8029 and write Stir in the text box.  Now grab the green square on the lower right corner. Pull the square down towards the whisk.

Enter ‘with’ in the text box.  Place the cursor over each yellow square to move the individual letters closer together.

Pull the green circle in the bottom center down towards the whisk.

Nestle the word just above the stem of the whisk.

Enter ‘Love’ in the text box and click Apply. Select the ‘L’ by clicking on the yellow square in the L. Move the letter to the left. Select the green circle on the upper right corner and rotate the L so that the base is parallel with the whisk’s handle.

Move and rotate each individual letter so that they connect and wrap along the top of the handle.

Save the design.

Make seven different designs and have fun with the sayings. Keep the gift recipient in mind and personalize, personalize, personalize!

Now that the designs are ready, mark the embroidery placement on each towel.  I used the Hand Towel with Border template from the Perfect Towel Kit. Slide a target sticker into each hole.

Hoop the towels in a 5” x 7” hoop with tear-away stabilizer and center the needle over the target sticker.

Remove the target sticker and embroider the design.

Press the towels on a fluffy terrycloth towel, pressing from the wrong side.  Set them aside for now. We’ll work on the ruffles and ribbon for next time.

Thanks for reading!

Reprinted with permission from Eileen's Blog.