Towel quilt
 

Hello, my friend has asked me to make a quilt using her collection of golf towels. They all have grommets which have to be cut off and the designs are all different sizes. I recently made my daughter a T-shirt/sweatshirt quilt using cotton fabric as sashing and it came out beautiful. But I’ve never used Terry cloth in a quilt. What type of fabric should I use for creating frames or sashing? Cotton is way too thin… perhaps flannel or fleece? Has anyone made a quilt made of towels? Also, once the top is finished, can you quilt Terry cloth on a long arm machine? Or will I have to tie it? I wouldn’t need batting because it’s already going to be thick. Please share your advice. Thank you.

I think I would use flannel with it and I would wash the flannel 2-3 times in hot water and also dry it on cotton. You may have to press it after but I would think the towels have been washed several times and flannel usually shrinks quite a bit and in my experience, it will continue to shrink for a couple of washes. I would think a good long arm would not have too much problem with quilting it providing the owner had a foot that would travel over the loops in the towels. I would think they would use a "scoop" foot or something similiar that is designed to travel over thicker/fluffy/loopy surfaces. Best though to check with the person you are going to have quilt it first or if you are planning on doing and have a longarm, I would make a "sample" and give it a try first to make sure your machine and foot could handle it. I haven't quilted on terry cloth.

I am a retired innkeeper and have a large but diminishing stash of old towels and bathmats. I use orphan quilt blocks to make new bathmats with the old towels as the backs. I usually use my walking foot to put all these together, with cotton batting between the layers. Flannel would work nicely, too, for a thinner rug.

I’ve used towels in quilts with tee shirts. I always put fusible on the back and used cotton as the sashing. Long arm quilter never complained about it.

I play a lot of golf, my golf towels range in different sizes and also thickness. Some are waffle weave, some are cheap thin towels, others are nice thick velour. If I were to make them into a quilt I would use thin batting and cotton fabric for the backing.

My mother in law made us a quilt with wash cloths, that used to be included in washing machine detergent, 55 years ago. She sashed them with good quilting cotton, used batting and also used quilting cotton for the backing. It is still in good shape.