Thread: Flour sack tea towel source

This place has them for $2.05 if you buy 100. The cheapest way I think is to buy muslin fabric and hem them yourself. http://www.discountembroideryblanks....hentowels.html

Try Vermont Country Store. http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/s...k_Towels/63272

Jan in VA

I have used this site:

http://www.colonialpatterns.com/

Originally Posted by Love2Craft

I'm sure I've asked this question before....but here goes again. I am looking for a source for old fashioned flour sack tea towels. I love to embroider on them. But the prices have really gotten high. Does anyone have a source for these. I wouldn't mind buying 100 or so if they are nice.

I get damask table cloths from a local thrift shop for a few dollars. They are usually donated from hotels and restaurants with meeting rooms and such. I can get from four to eight nice sized dish towels from one table cloth. I just cut and usually have at least one side already hemmed. I figure I spend less than fifty cents for each towel. Sometimes I find plain linen cloths, the linen is especially nice and I save it for hand embroidery. I steer away from obviously poly blend fabric. I decorate, embellish or machine embroider them. They make great dish towels and the damask pattern adds a bit of posh to the finished product. My kids and grands tell me they are great to use. I asked my DIL once if she was tired of my homey gifts and she gasped out....no if you didn't send them I would have to buy some, I use them all the time and they are better than the ones in the store. Here is the simple way I hem them. I do a serged edge in a matching thread, then I just turn down this quarter inch and machine sew a straight stitch along it. Nice durable finish and quick and easy to do. Some times I find those great printed table cloths from the fifties and those I cannot bear to cut...I just use them as is. However one especially nice cloth was chewed by a mouse. I cut around the hole and made valences for the sewing room. I have had them for a long time and they still look good in there. Some I know have made camp shirts or aprons out of them but NOOOO, still cannot bear to cut them up. One last tip, I get those great damask napkins and they make great hanging towels, you know those towels that have a top that folds over and uses a button to secure it to a stove handle or fridge door. I just drafted a pattern piece and use the fabric to embellish some dish towels for a coordinated set.

Think my mother used to buy them for an elderly friend of hers for hand embroidering. I got them when the friend passed away and now I use them to cover my threads and machines to keep them dust off them. Probably have around a couple dozen of them folded up onto the shelf. Some are unused, some with embroidery on them. Nice size too, think around 36 x 36 or close to it as they seem fairly large.

I have purchased a lot of "feedsack" towels from Sams Club. I think they are 12 for $12.?? They are a good size and work very well for machine embroidery. I do not use any dense designs but rather stick with the vintage days of the week designs. Of course I always wash them first and this will entail some pressing and starching before stitching but the end result is very nice. I have sold them at craft fairs with repeat customers. I forgot to mention that you can also purchase them at Walmart--maybe a bit smaller in size but pretty much same quality.