Mend a Towel
Last weekend, my son was in town for something to do with Civil Air Patrol. I asked him to bring his laundry so I could clean it. He normally does this himself, but I do not mind giving him a break and I usually find something that needs mending. This time it was a towel. An otherwise perfectly good towel had a giant hole in it and three small holes. This is what I did repair the towel.
The small image shows the patches. I patched it with an old blue towel. I could have used a white towel, but I wanted contrast. 
The small patches are just squares laid over the hole and sewn over. I used a smocking stitch instead of zig-zag. Most machines should have that. My machine is 32 years old and not fancy, although it is excellent. 
To patch the giant hole, I laid the blue towel under the white and sewed all around the hole with a straight stitch. After that, I trimmed each side around one-quarter inch from the stitching. Then I sewed over the raw edges on both sides with the smocking stitch.
After that, I dropped the feed-dogs, released pressure off the foot, and wrote the message, Instant Win, on the blue patch. I did free-hand writing, remember, my machine is not fancy. John used to say “instant win” a lot. 
Image of patch:
This towel writing isn’t new. A decade ago or more, I used to write (sew) various messages, such as “Shower Power” , “Oh to be Clean” (and etc.) on wash cloths to the kids. Pictured below is one of the washcloths.
Have a nice day!
The green vertical typeable header calendars are now available up to the school year 2009-2010. Use them for your school calendar or for keeping an attendance record. All text in the header can be changed.
I love it!
Except now I’m going to have to go and embroider all my washcloths with spunky little messages. Thanks a lot, Donna.
That is so cool! You are such a cool mom. I am impressed with your free writing. This post makes me want to get my sewing machine fixed.
That is so cool. I am really impressed too!!
I was hard pressed to sew a straight line on my last project
What a neat idea. You’ve inspired me to mend my towels now.
Donna, that is so
that you repair towels 
I just throw them in the rag pile for drying off the dogs, cars or clean up messes. Your family is so lucky to have you 
That’s really cute. I like the idea of leaving them messages on their towels….I bet your kids are so happy they have you.
This is really very cool.