Flour Sack Dish Towels

I've always liked flour sack towels for the kitchen because they're thin and dry quickly and they're lint free.  My sister got some as a gift for Christmas and that started me thinking I'd like some too.  So then I looked on Pinterest to see if there were any cool, crafty ways to personalize them.  I found and LOVED this project by A PRETTY COOL LIFE.  So I decided to make some of my own.  I wanted a rainbow look, but I also wanted to make sure to include turquoise, since that is the main color of my kitchen.  And after it was too late, I realized I got yellow and green mixed up (according to rainbow order...) and I added a fuchsia in a weird place, and the green looks more forest-y than Kelly...but overall I'm happy with the result!

For this project you'll need:
flour sack towels (these were $4.88 for a pack of 5 at Wal-Mart)
thread in rainbow colors
sewing machine
patience
time

One thing I liked about this project is that it helped me learn something new about my sewing machine.  According to the tutorial, I should use triple stitch, to make the colors show up better.  According to my manual, triple stitch is available on my machine and the setting for it looks like three blue lines.  It took me awhile, but I then figured out I had to turn my dial to S1 to get that setting. 

I used the hem of the towel as a guide for my first stitch and then just lined the edge of the presser foot up with the row of stitches below it.  I usually have trouble sewing straight lines, but this method seemed to work for this project.

See the project unfold!

I made three towels, and did each color on all three, before moving on to the next color and it was SO MUCH WORK and TOOK FOREVER!  For one thing, winding a new bobbin and changing out the color of thread every few minutes is a lot of work.  For another thing, when the machine does triple stitch, it goes back over every stitch, so it takes longer than usual.  I timed one color on one towel and it took 2:37 just to stitch that line.  So that is an hour and eight minutes of just stitching.  Then add in time for winding the bobbin 9 times and changing the thread 9 times, and breaks for drinking diet coke and it takes a full afternoon to finish this project.  But the end result is beautiful, useful, custom and gives you a sense of accomplishment!