Kitchen Towel Clip {Christmas Gift Idea}

I am running a little behind today, but I am finally getting my gift idea for the Creative Carousel posted for you. I will back later this evening with the wrap-up and to announce the winners of the two awesome giveaways. The theme for Creative Carousel this month has been Handmade for the Holidays, and I have sure loved all the ideas so far! I am sharing an idea for a gift that is not only useful, but totally cute. At least I think so. 🙂

At our house, the kitchen dish towel is constantly on the floor. And I do mean constantly. Anybody else have this problem? It has been driving me nuts for at least a decade. Because let’s face it, towels on the floor is gross. But you can either hang them back up again, or wash towels 3 times a day. Both options make me a little cranky. I finally came up with an idea that is going to change the world. OK, maybe not the world, but it will change your kitchen. . .

Kitchen Towel Clips!!

You wrap them around the oven door, and they hold your towel in place. Woohoo– no more towels on the floor. Unless you have a toddler with a really strong grip who can pull them off. In that case, your only other option is a toddler straightjacket. Totally kidding. Mostly. I think these would make fabulous neighbor gifts, especially for households with children. Just package one up with a cute dish towel and you’re good to go. I’ve even included a free printable tag for you to use. 🙂

Kitchen Towel Clip Tutorial

Supplies:
-Fabric scraps
-Binder clip
-Sew-able velcro
-Scissors
-Embellishment for flower center

Instructions:
1-Cut a piece of fabric about 2 1/2″ wide by 7″ long. (Or tear it, like I did mine.)
2-Fold the fabric in half lengthwise and sew a seam up the side.

3-Turn it right side out and you will have a tube shape.
4-Now iron it so the seam is in the middle:
5-Now you want to tuck those ragged edges into the inside of the tube of fabric. Just use your finger to turn the fabric to the inside.
6-Alrighty, pay attention to this part. If you have a small round oven handle, you can tuck the ends in pretty far. If you have a newer oven with the larger rectangle handle, you can only tuck in about 1/4″ on each end because you need the tube to be long enough to wrap around the handle.  If you are making these as gifts, I’d just make them long to be safe. When they are the length you need, iron the ends.
7- Now it’s time to attach the velcro. I used 5/8″ wide sewable velcro. Cut it just barely shorter than your tube is wide.
8-Place one piece of velcro on each end of the tube, and stitch each of them in place. Make sure you sew close enough to the end that you catch the folded under edges.
9-Now it’s time to bling it up a little. Flip it over to the front, and hot glue or sew a flower to the top edge. I used a gathered fabric flower for this one. Tip: Glue the flower to the edge with the stiff, scratchy velcro. The softer velcro is easier to thread through the clip. I learned this the hard way. 😉
10-Now thread the end of the fabric through the clip.
When you attach the pieces of velcro together, it should look something like this:
Now all you gotta do is wrap the strip around your oven handle and attach the ends with the velcro:
And clip on any dish towel.
Now do a little happy dance because your dish towels won’t end up on the floor every 5.2 seconds. Hooray!!

If you want to give them out this Christmas, I made up a printable tag. It is my very first one ever, so be kind.