White Tea Towel Topper

white tea towel topper

This is not my first attempt at a tea towel topper, but the first worth sharing! This one I unravelled a couple of times before I was happy enough to leave it.

My sister's birthday is coming up and she's asked me to make her something black and white for her kitchen. I was thinking of making dishcloths, but white dish clothes are not a good idea as the white part will stain and end up looking grubby. I thought I'd make some oven mitt pot holders, but then I realised the acrylic blend cotton I had bought was not suitable, as anything that is exposed to heat like that should be 100% cotton, otherwise it might melt! I finally decided I would give some tea towel toppers a try. The first one I tried a couple of years ago was just a random effort, I did not follow a pattern at all and it wasn't very good.

This time I decided to try a simple tea towel topper pattern at the Lion Brand Yarn site, but after I did it I wasn't happy with that either. It was too gathered and the decreasing stitches were too spread apart. The next morning I went to my craft group, taking Thomas with me which meant I only had a little time to do it before he woke from his nap. While I was there, I unravelled the topper to the 3rd row, and then went on making my own pattern that was not as puckered, changing from a 4mm hook to a 3.5mm to make the stitches closer together. Instead of decreasing every stitch in every row, I did every second stitch in every second row. Every other row was just a normal 1 for 1 row. This made it less buckled up. By the time I got to the strap I realised another lady at the craft group had some vintage tea towel topper patterns, so I found one I liked and just copied the strap part only, it was a pretty fan design. Then I went all the way around with sc to finish it off.

a fan design on the topper strap

I had to change the fan design slightly as I didn't understand the vintage pattern, this is my version of it.
Fan strap design added to work
1. 8 dc, turn.
2. 2 ch, dc, 2 ch sk 1, sc, 2 ch sk 1, dc, dc, turn
3. 4 ch, tr into dc, 5 tr into sc (fan), tr into dc, tr into dc, turn
4. 2 ch, dc, 2 ch, sc into middle tr of fan, 2 ch, dc into tr, dc into tr, turn
5 - 10 repeat row 3 & 4 3 more times

The Lion Brand Yarn pattern said to start the first row as an embroidered chain stitch with needle and thread. I found this method works better for attaching the crochet, rather than trying to crochet straight through the cloth, which I have tried before with minimal success. The problem with this first attempt is it is wonky, not going straight across the middle fold exactly, so next time I will have to draw the line so I can follow it more accurately.

I intend for this to form part of a set of three. Watch this space for more tea towel toppers to come!