Well, this morning was not the morning I was supposed to be launching these ready-to-stitch autumn towel sets – but everything has piled up in a weird way this September!
So, to try to get ahead of some future events, I wanted to make these available and get them out to you, since I promised I would.
Besides, October will be here before we know it, and as you know, that’s when everyone goes Pumpkin Mad. We might as well have a head start!
You’ve seen my sneak peeks of Festive Fall for the last several weeks as I’ve worked my way through the designs, experimenting here and there with stitches and colors, and tweaking the designs so that they would provide a good stitching experience for you.
They’ve been a load of fun to embroider! And they put me completely in the Mood for Autumn.
I’ve been wanting to do an embroidery design like this with an Autumn theme for quite a while.
I love simple embroidery designs on humble flour sack towels, because they can be used in so many pleasant ways.
They can be hung in the kitchen to celebrate a season, true, but they can also be used as tea cloths, as table accents, as gift wrap, as bread warmers in a basket of hot dinner rolls. They can be used to line gift baskets and food baskets during the holidays. They can used to wrap a bottle of wine.
Or they can be used as a simple gift all by themselves – a gift that shows you cared enough to take the time to make something special, for someone special.
Festive Fall – the Ready-to-Stitch Towels
Today, I’m launching a set of ready-to-stitch flour sack towels, pre-transferred with one of each Festive Fall design on each towel. There are three versions of the designs for Festive Fall. Each design includes a pumpkin, some fall leaves, some stalks of wheat, and some decorative scrolls. There is a light, a medium, and full version of the design in each set.
The flour sack towels are 100% cotton. While flour sack towels are not a “luxury fabric” by any means, these towels are good quality – the best I’ve found available today.
The towels are bright white, approximately 27″ square, hemmed on all four sides, with a hanging tab in the corner. The design is situated in the corner opposite the hanging tab.
The transferred designs are clear and crisp, very easy to see, and fine enough that two strands of floss easily cover the design lines. While the design lines will fade and eventually wash out over time, they won’t wash out in the first launderings, so you will want to cover the lines completely with embroidery.
Design & Stitch Guide Coming!
I wholeheartedly regret the fact that I cannot ship the towel sets outside the US! I have done everything I can to hunt down a reasonable international shipping option for the ready-to-stitch towels, but due to the weight of the towel sets, the cheapest option I can manage is $24 to ship one set of towels, with at least a three week delivery time frame. It simply isn’t feasible. You can purchase flour sack or similar towels in your own countries for significantly less – but I can’t afford to sell the pre-transferred sets for less, considering the time and expense involved in the transfer process.
In the second half of September (hopefully by the end of next week), the patterns, color, and stitch guide for Festive Fall will be available as an e-book. Like the Floral Corners e-book here on Needle ‘n Thread, it will include the patterns, a full list of the colors I used on my samples, and a stitch guide. There will be step-by-step photos for the stitches I used, as well as plenty of tips so that even the beginner can approach these projects with confidence.
I used DMC floss for the sample projects, but you can substitute your own favorite floss – just make sure you test your threads for colorfastness before you stitch the designs!
And of course, you don’t need a stitch guide, necessarily. You can use any stitches you want to use on a project like this. Maybe you’re only comfortable with stem stitch – or maybe your favorite stitch is the backstitch. With designs like these, you have perfect freedom to stitch them however you want – and that’s what makes these projects so darned relaxing and fun to embroider!
Towel Sets in Abundance…
I didn’t want to launch the Festive Fall towel sets without having some of the Holly & Evergreen sets and Floral Corner sets available, too, for those of you who would like to pick up a couple different sets and save on shipping.
So right now, you can find all three ready-to-stitch towel sets available here in my shop.
I’ve tried my best to make sure there are plenty in stock and that they don’t all sell out first thing! If they do sell out and there’s still an interest, I’ll put more together as soon as I can. Just drop me a line to request placement on the advanced notice list for whatever designs you’re after.
A Note on Shipping
I can only ship two sets in one package. So if you order two sets (whether of the same design or in combination with another design), they can both ship in the same package for the same cost.
However, if you want three or four sets (or more), you’ll need to place separate orders of no more than two sets per order. I will combine the orders if possible to give you a better shipping price and then refund the difference.
My Hope!
I really hope you enjoy stitching Festive Fall as much as I have! I still have at least one more to finish. I’m using the samples as gifts (birthday, wedding showers, and hostess gifts) for friends up through Thanksgiving this year. If I’m smart, I’ll get them finished now, so I can move on to the Christmas stuff before December drops on my head… as it does every year!
Enjoy your weekend! I should be back to the normal publishing schedule on Monday (I apologize – I’ve been flat out busy on this end of the screen), so I’ll see you then!
