The fall season means craft show season. If you’re selling at craft shows, it’s important to have something that has a high profit margin, sells well, and is attractive to a variety of ages and life styles. Crocheted kitchen towels are one of those items. They cost about 75 cents to make and sell for $2.50. One towel takes about 30 minutes to make.
When people shop for kitchen decorations they are more interested in the color of the item than the price. This means that a crafter can sell the item for top dollar rather than mark the price down to compete with other crafters. Customers are also more apt to buy a craft if it is something they can’t get at Wal-Mart and other stores that sell craft look alike products that are manufactured and sold at prices that crafters can’t match. Kitchen towels can appeal to these customers if the crafter has a wide variety of colors, high quality towels, and various holiday designs. Shop for holiday towels when they go on sale following a holiday and the profit margin will be higher.
There are a variety of ways to make crocheted towels. The purpose is to add a top to the towel that can be fastened to a drawer pull. It allows the towel to hang near a sink where people can dry their hands. It keeps the towel off the counter top, and allows it to dry between uses.
Each crafter has their own way of adding a top to a towel. This is my pattern. A beginning crochet student in middle school should be able to make this easily.
To make a towel, you will need a new kitchen towel. Used towel have shrunk in the dryer, and this makes it much harder to work with. You will also need scissors, yarn, a one-inch button, yarn needle and a crochet hook that size G or smaller. The size of the hook depends upon the weight of the yarn being used. Any type of yarn can be used; cotton thread, sport weight or four ply.
Begin by cutting the towel in half across the fold in the center. Sew lace or ribbon to the bottom hem on each piece if desired.
Make a slip knot loop and place it on the crochet hook. Hold the cut edge of the towel securely and rock the tip of the hook back and forth to push the threads in the towel to either side, making a hole in the fabric. It helps if the hook is pointed. Yarn over, pull the loop through and work a single crochet. Continue working across the cut edge, spacing the holes evenly, at about the gauge for that size hook and yarn.
Chain 1 and turn. Work a row of single crochet, one stitch in each stitch across.
Chain one. Fold the towel so that the side hems are in the center of the towel. This is the way a new towel is folded, so use the folds that are in the material as a guide. Push the crochet hook through both rows of stitches, front and back, to make the two rows into one. Work to the left edge, chain one and turn.
Work a row of single crochet back to the middle where the first single crochet was made in the last row. Work a half double crochet in the next stitch. Work double crochet in each stitch across to the other side of the towel. This will make these two rows equal one row of double crochet. There will be two rows of single crochet on one side of the towel, and a row of double crochet on the other side of the towel.
Begin working rows of double crochet, one stitch in each stitch, skipping the first stitch and the next to the last stitch on the ends of each row. This will decrease each row by two stitches.
Continue decreasing each row until there are seven stitches left. This number must be odd or the button hole will be too big. Cheat a little bit if you have to.
Work five to seven rows of double crochet, one stitch in each stitch, keeping the rows even, to make the tab that will fold over the drawer pull. The tab should be three to five inches long, as desired.
To make the button hole, work one double crochet stitch in each stitch for the first three stitches. Chain one. Skip one stitch. Work one stitch in each stitch for the last three stitches. Chain one. Turn. Work seven double crochet in the chain at the center to make a scallop or shell stitch. Work one single crochet in the last stitch. End and weave the yarn end into the work.
Use yarn and a yarn needle to sew a button to the wider part of the crocheted work.
This top will fit the type of drawer pull that looks like a U. To make a crocheted top that will fit on a knob, modify the seven stitch wide part slightly. Make three button holes, spaced one row apart instead of just one. Fold the top down so that the first and second holes match up. Use the third or last hole for the button as in the other design. Slip the first and second holes over the knob, with the button underneath. This design works best in four ply synthetic yarn because it will stretch over a knob better than stiff cotton thread.
Some customers are looking for knob friendly towels. A good marketing technique is to add a tag that says “knob friendly” in large letters, drawing their attention to this unique feature.
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