100% cotton. 100% cotton. I wanted to sew our own bath towels. The cloth needed was terry cloth. Smart arse like me no Google before leaving the house to the fabric shop. The Bangladeshi guy working at Kamdar who speaks fluent English said I will have to order the whole roll of terry cloth shipped by container all the way from China. My head was making some calculation such as why three pieces of bath towels need a whole container of cloth? I'm definitely not planning to embalm myself in terry cloth like a mummy. In the end, we found terry bath towel on one of the shelves of ready-made bath towels. Then, it clicked in my head, why not I just re-designed the bath towels?
The next question was, what was terry cloth made of? I know it's kinda stupid but we have zero knowledge regarding fabrics. So, we're going to learn through mistakes and by asking stupid questions and let those Bangladeshi and Indonesian and Indian workers laugh at us. We laughed together actually to dismiss the awkwardness. We came back with three pieces of terry bath towels and sat in front of the computer instead of the sewing machine. What you're looking at in the first picture was that of flat cotton bath towel. It's still 100% cotton but the process was simpler compared to terry. The softness was missing in this case and the ability to absorb water was poorer. We went to Queensbay and realized that most towels were flat cotton which cost around RM100. You're just buying the brand name without knowing about the quality of the material.
This over here is terry bath towel. Can you see that those loops were double in size? It has gone through another process to create such fluffiness. The ability to absorb water was the highest compared to other types of cotton. So, you might be thinking how to personalize your very own bath towels. Initials? Nah...
Mi mama and I went to Kamdar the next day to walk around the whole of Kamdar searching for some other type of cotton cloth. There were so many types of cotton cloth that our eyes were seeing stars. In the end, I searched according to the colour and design that I wanted. We walked in circles and went to where we started. Funny how we totally missed this. This is cotton poplin and according to Google, this type of cloth is very easy to work with especially to make men's clothes. Cotton poplin is not cheap. It's RM16.90 per metre.
I used applique technique to personalize my towel. Search for the designs that you want, cut it out on a piece of paper then trace it on a fusible web. It's like a double-sided tape for cloth. Don't worry if you don't know how to use. Just iron it on. I also don't know how to use it at first. Learn through hands-on trial and error. If you spoil the whole thing then just go get a new one. Or else you will never learn. This was my first time using an iron... a steam iron. The night before, hubby has briefed me on the usage of the steam iron. I happily filled it with water and switch on the plug. But there's no lights on the iron and it wasn't even hot. I placed it back on the iron mat and the next moment was the whole mat was flooded with water. It's still very early in the morning and I woke my precious up to rescue me. She knows how to use an iron because she irons her school uniforms, not me. She said it's not even switched on so I change to another power point and ta-da~! It worked! And the fusible web just fused nicely with the cotton poplin cloth.
Cut them out and peel off the fusible web just like using the double-sided tape. Then, iron on the towel and bring it to the sewing machine and sew them together. Will show you one close-up design. It's not perfect, okay. I have a crumpled dog and a more crumpled dog. Only both paws were perfectly sewn.
Dare to try~! Step on the pedal and just do it~! *woof woof* I have two more towels to go~!
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