Little Boxes On The Hillside...

"...little boxes made of ticky tacky. Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same. There's a green one, and a pink one, and a blue one, and a yellow one..."

Appliqued Dish Towels

Ingredients:

• sewing machine
• white dish towels
• Amy Butler fabric scraps (her fabrics are great!)
• trim of choice for the "grass"
• Heat N Bond (or a comparable fusible web)
• iron
• card paper & pencil for house pattern

Easy Directions:

1. Pre-shrink your fabrics (in the laundry) then iron the towel and fabric scraps.
2. I went ahead and applied Heat N Bond to my fabric scraps. Follow directions for your fusible web (will be on the package or on the web paper) and apply to the wrong side of your fabric scraps, leaving one side of the backing paper on.
3. Cut out your card paper using basic geometric shapes. For each towel I used 4 triangles and 8 different sized rectangles (4 small for the doors and 4 large for the buildings). These shapes will be your patterns.
4. Trace your pattern on the fabric's paper side and cut out your pattern.
5. Arrange your patterns to form houses on the bottom center of your dish towel. When you're satisfied with your layout, remove the paper backings and fuse the fabric to your towel (following your fusible web directions).
6. Here are my 4 towels so far:
7. Zig-zag stitch around your outline to secure the fabric in place (and to prevent fraying). *Note: this uses a ton of thread!
8. When all of your houses are zig-zagged, measure and cut your trim for the bottom of the dish towel. Sew this along the bottom of your towel
9. Et VOILA!

Craft Notes: There's almost a rhythm to zig-zagging the outlines and remember you don't have to cut your threads until the end; this will save you time. Also, the picture doesn't show it, but the green ric-rac is a lime green and I preferred the sunny ruffled yellow. Experiment with your fabrics and trim...have fun!

My SC chickies received theirs last night so that's why I can post today =) Mammie Kay (Mom's mom) will get one and I think the last one's for keeps.