Reusable "Paper" Towel

Between having a baby, dog and husband, I use lots of paper towel to clean up messes. To be fair, I'm probably the worst offender with the kitchen mess making, especially when the blender is involved in the project. When I realized that we're literally using a roll a week, which is unbelievably wasteful, I decided that it was time to do something about it. Pinterest yet again delivered with ideas for reusable paper towel, modified to meet my needs :) Since my needs usually call for a half-sheet of paper towel, I made mine in half-sheet size. I finished this project early this week and started using the cloth towels, and let me tell you, they ROCK. One sheet of Bounty doesn't have anything on terry cloth! I also made a wet bag to hang on my stove and collect the dirty towels until it's time to wash them.

Reusable Paper Towel
Materials:
- 1 1/2 yards of terry cloth material
- 1 1/2 yards of cotton material or flannel
- matching thread
- sew-on velcro
- scissors
- sewing machine

Instructions:
1. Wash and dry both pieces of fabric.

2. Cut 24 6" by 11" rectangles out of both types of fabric. Set the extra fabric aside for the wet bag. If you want full-sheet sized towels, make your pieces 12" by 11" and only cut 12 of each fabric.

3. Match the rectangles up into pairs, one terry, one cotton. Place the printed side of the cotton face-up, pin together around the edges, then sew all of the way around the rectangles, leaving about a 1/8 allowance between the stitch and edge of the fabric.

4. Cut the velcro into 1" pieces. Lay the rectangle flat, cotton side up, short edges as top and bottom, and place two pieces of the same type of  velcro in the corners on the left side, one on the top corner, one on the bottom. Sew these on. Flip the towel over, place the opposite pieces of velcro in the corners on the left side of the terry cloth, sew on.

5. To make the wet bag, cut two 12" x 14" pieces of each type of fabric. Place one piece of terry cloth down, then a piece of cotton - print up on top of it. Set the other piece of cotton - face down onto the stack, then the other piece of terry cloth. Sew around 3 of the sides, then turn it inside out. Cut 4 16" x 3/4" strips of the cotton fabric. Roll each piece over onto itself 3 times, then sew it together. These will be the ties. Pin two ties into each side of the top of the bag. Sew the cotton to the terry around the top, securing the ties into the seem well.

6. Using an empty cardboard paper towel roll, mark where the velcro from the terry cloth side of the towels is. Glue the opposite type of velcro around the tube at both of the marks.

7. I had to rewash my towels at this point, since the terry cloth sheds a lot while cutting and sewing. If yours are ok, then you can attach your towels into a roll! Woohoo!