Appliqued Halloween Hand Towels

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Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

Adding a festive Halloween applique to a basic tea towel is a great way to add a bit of Halloween holiday cheer to your kitchen. These towels are excellent home decor options and can be done individually or as hand towel sets. Don't stop with your tea towels, either — create Halloween bath towels, guest towels, napkins and even your old washcloths!

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Halloween kitchen towels supplies

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Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

Things You'll Need

  • Tea towel or bath towel

  • Printed copy of your spooky template

  • Fabric for your design

  • Washable fabric pen or chalk pencil

  • Pins

  • Thread

  • Sewing machine

Roughly trace template onto tea towel

Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

Take your printed template and place it underneath your tea towel so that the design is positioned where you would like it to be appliqued. Roughly trace within the applique pieces using your washable marker or chalk pencil so that you will know where to place the cut pieces. If needed, do your tracing on a light box or in a bright window.

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Pin and cut template

Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

Pin the template on top of the fabric you will be appliqueing to the towel and carefully cut out the template shapes.

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Pin template to tea towel

Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

Pin the template to the tea towel, using your chalk/pen marks and placement guidelines.

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Sew fabric to tea towel

Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

Sew your fabric to the tea towel, removing the pins as you come to them. Use a dense zig-zag stitch (often called a satin stitch) to ensure that the edges of your fabric won't unravel.

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Stitch in the details

Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

If there are small details, consider stitching them instead of cutting very small pieces of fabric, as with the eyes of the ghost.

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Applique witch head from felt

Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

If you use a fabric that will not unravel, such as fleece or felt, you don't need to use a satin stitch and can instead use a straight stitch. Remember that synthetic fabrics (like fleece and craft felt) can't handle high temperatures. You can find and use wool felt, which will be safe to iron and use around hot pans.

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Appliqued tea towels

Image Credit: Seamstress Erin Currie

Your options aren't limited to ghosts and witches. You can use designs for carved-up Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, black cats, Halloween skulls, haunted houses — the only limit is your imagination. Reach into the most ghoulish recesses of your mind to craft the spookiest Halloween dish towels you can.

Display your tea towels and enjoy the holiday cheer. Happy Halloween!

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