Upclycled: old shirt to kitchen towel

Hello, and welcome. It's been a while since I shared an upclycing project but this one was so quick and easy I just had to post about it here.

My husband discarded a cotton shirt because it was both the neck and the cuffs were too worn out. I did love the pattern in the fabric, though, so I knew I wanted to make something with it. 

There are lots of things you can make with an old shirt, but a lot of them take longer than the time I had available to sew - and I just didn't want to start a new project that I couldn't finish (another for the pile). So I took the shortest route - and made a kitchen towel.

Save for a few that I bought recently, most of my kitchen towels are either gifts or upcycles. And it's so easy that there's really no reason not to make them.

From the back of the shirt I cut a simple rectangle of fabric. Due to the stripes in the pattern, I was fairly easy to cut straight lines with just a pair of scissors.

  

Initially had thought just to hem the "new" kitchen towel but then discovered some thin brown bias tape in my stash that I had never used before - and it was just perfect for this one. 

So instead of hemming I decided to sew bias tape all around the edges: 

I'm not a huge fan of sewing bias tape (because it somehow never ends up as I envisaged it), but it this case I think it turned out pretty good, especially considering this is an upcycle anyway. 

Here's my new dishtowel, ironed and ready to be used: 

Happy Tuesday!

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