I have a number of textiles I’ve picked up on our travels. I usually pick up a tea towel as a memento of the trip if I spot them in a store, but when I get home I just can't bring myself to use them for everyday stuff around the kitchen.
I’ve had a vague idea of creating something with the tea towels like a quilt or blanket of some kind but then while scrolling on Pinterest I saw a few examples of tablecloths made from tea towels and thought that would be a great idea and would be something I would actually use.
For this one, I used tea towels from our international trips. They include our time in Spain, trips to Ireland, Italy, France, Scotland, Latvia and Berlin - plus two tea towels celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s diamond and platinum jubilees– because she deserves two tea towels!
There are a few different tutorials on Pinterest that give great guidance on turning your tea towels into a tablecloth. Ultimately I think you have to figure out the size of your table, how many tea towels you want to use and how you want to place them. You also have to decide how much you're willing to cut the towels for alignment. Ultimately my alignment on the last row of towels is a bit off, but I loved the patterns on the Berlin and Italy tea towels and really didn't want to cut them down a bunch so I decided to just accept a little bit of an offset row. I used a bright blue bias tape to edge the tablecloth that I thought went well with all the different colors in the various tea towels. I've seen some super cute versions using pom pom trim and I almost went with that, but I want this tablecloth to be part of our regular rotation and I thought the bias tape might hold up to frequent washing a bit better.
I'm so happy that I can enjoy these tea towels on a regular basis. This was a pretty quick and easy project, so I think I'll do the same with tea towels I've squirreled away from our trips around the states. I really want to incorporate items that have happy memories attached to them into my regular daily life rather than packing them away.
Although I used tea towels that I picked up on our trips, this is an easy and fun project for vintage tea towels or linens that you might find at the thrift store. I have a hard time not "saving" any hand embroidered pillow cases, tea towels or other items that I find in thrift and vintage stores. This is a good way to use them and give them new life and let people appreciate their kitschy, fun beauty.