No Slip Dish Towel Tutorial

I've been eyeing some great tutorials on Pinterest about "stay put" or "no slip" dish towels.  The idea is that the towel is attached to the oven door, and they don't fall off...or get pulled off by little hands.  I often find my dish towel in places like the couch, or the girls' bathroom, or under Hannah's bed.  Not handy when I have wet hands! 

This isn't a new idea, but this is a fresher, more modern take on the craft bazaar, crochet top towels.  Here are some really great ideas I've pinned:

The Stay-put Kitchen Towel from Pin. Sew. Press.; The No-Slip Dish Towel from Martha Stewart;

and Stay Put Dish Towel from Sassy Sanctuary.

One of my New Year's goals is to work toward a paperless kitchen.  So I went out and got some new dish towels.  I already have dozens of towels, but most of them pre-date Jonathan, so I decided that it was time for a little update.  I adore flour sack towels (and have two whole sets of hand-embroidered ones that have seen better days), so when I saw a set of brightly colored flour sack towels today at Target, I was so excited.  I love that they are very thin, which makes them dry fast after use.  Or at least they did when we lived somewhere without humidity.  Now, nothing drys fast...

But as soon as I got home and logged into Pinterest, I discovered that none of the tutorials I had been looking at would work for my big, square flour sack towels.  They were meant for smaller, rectangular towels.  So I took some ideas from all of the above sources, and did a mash up.  (Guess who loves Glee?)

Ready for a sewing tutorial?  Here goes...

I started with my towel.  I folded it in half, and lightly pressed the center seam as a pinning guide.

Then I pulled this wonderful stuff out of my stash.  I googled it, and unfortunately, I don't think they make it anymore.  (Please tell me if they do!).  This is mesh elastic, and it was originally purchased by my grandmother, probably in the late 70s or early 80s.  My mom sent it to me last spring.  (Can you see that she paid $.55 for it?)

There are three thin cords of elastic, woven together with a clear, stretchy cord.  You sew through it a couple of times while stretching the elastic, and it makes a sort of smocked look.  I used up a whole bunch of this when I was mass-producing Christmas pageant costumes in December. 

Since you probably don't have 30 year old notions sitting around, you could reproduce this with a thin piece of regular elastic, although it would be more bulky than the mesh elastic.

You can just pull the elastic tight while you are sewing, creating a ruffle.  However, I wanted to make sure that both sides of the towel were gathered equally, so I cut two matching lengths of elastic and pinned them before sewing.

I stitched the elastic 1 1/2 inches from the center on both sides. 

Then I added a 1/4 strip of Velcro just below the elastic on each side.

And here you go!  It was a super easy project, which took about 20 minutes.  The Velcro holds the towel in place just enough to deter removing it from its place, but is easy enough to detach that it can be used for drying dishes as well as hands.

And for the rest of the no-paper? I'll keep you updated when (and if) we put that roll of paper towels away for good.