Easy Tea Towel Valance

I realize that some of you are wondering what the heck a tea towel is, let alone a tea towel valance.  Tea towel is a "Canadianism" (as Mr. B. says) for a kitchen or dish towel.  It's a little known fact that I was born and raised in Canada and I am full of "Canadianisms".

I'm used to the fact that my "Canadianisms" cause all sorts of confusion.  Like the time I sent my brother in law (Mr. B.'s brother) to the store for a "tin" of tuna. He returned some time later and apologetically handed me a bag.  "Sorry." He said. "I looked and I looked for tins but could only find cans of tuna.  I hope it's okay."  He wondered why I started laughing... I'm giggling while I write this.

I'm getting off topic though.  Let's get back to the valances...  My kitchen window needed a new valance.  I couldn't find any ready made valances that I liked, and I couldn't find a fabric that appealed to me.  One day I was buying tea (dish/kitchen) towels and it struck me... these would look great over my window.  The short side was the perfect valance length.  I loaded my shopping cart up with the towels.

The valance was super easy to make.  There is very little sewing because the towel is totally finished and hemmed already.  This makes it a great beginner sewing project.

My kitchen window is 62 inches wide, or 5 feet 2 inches.  I used the long side of the towel for the rod pocket, so I bought one towel for each foot of window.  You may want to add one more towels for fullness, or in case your towels shrink when you wash them.  It's a good idea to wash the towels first in case of shrinkage.  

Working with the long side, fold the towels over about an inch to an inch and a half depending on the size of the curtain rod you are using.  Iron the fold and pin.

I started sewing inside the corner hem, so I didn't have to stitch over multiple layers of fabric.  Sew straight across following the inside of the hem as your stitching guide.  Pull the pins out as you sew.  Repeat on each of the towels.

Slip the curtain rod into each of the towels, adjust the gathering and hang.

The nice thing about this valance is that I can reuse it for drying dishes when I decide to redecorate.

How To Start Composting

In an earlier post I told you that I had bought a compost bin and set it up near our soon to be vegetable garden.  I know I'll need to add fertilizer to my garden.  Why not make it myself?  I have all the necessary ingredients to make wonderful compost to fertilize my garden.  Let me share with you how simple it is to make your own compost.

From Dog Crate to Kitchen Counter

We have a HUGE dog crate in our kitchen.

It's the Gorilla Tough XLarge (28"W  X  48"L  X  35"H) model, which we had had to buy for our Chow/Rott mix, Pamunky, when she outgrew the smaller crate we had.  It had to be the Gorilla Tough crate because she had figured out how to escape from the other wire crate we had and attractive furniture style crates make lovely chew toys.

I think you'll agree that it is not the most attractive kitchen decor.  Add this to the fact that we have a horribly  laid out kitchen with very little counter space or storage space. (I swear the people who designed this kitchen, never cooked a day in their life and brought home take out or ate out every single day.)  I had to find a way to make the crate work for us, beyond confining the dog.  Seriously, I store my baking pans in my oven and when I need to use the oven, I have no place to put the pans, so they end up being put on top of the dog crate.  Useful, yes.  Attractive, no.

My solution was to make the dog crate look a little less like a dog crate and more like a kitchen feature.

This was a totally spur of the moment project.  Something had to be done and I had to do it NOW.  I was over looking at that dog crate everyday.

I didn't have any plywood, but remember all those delivery boxes, I told you I had?  I measured the top of the crate inside the wire hooks, broke down a large cardboard box, then cut it to fit and laid it on top of the dog crate.  The cardboard will help with the weight distribution of all those pans I have stored in my oven.  Who am I kidding?  I will have to go and get plywood cut to size as soon as possible.  If you aren't putting anything heavy on top of your dog crate, a broken down cardboard box will do.

It looks even worse than it did before!   Not for long.  I had an old white rectangular tablecloth, which I wasn't using, so I laid it over the top of the crate.  Then I got my recipe box, cookie jar, some cooking magazines, and flowers and decorated the top of the crate.  Oneida, one of our seven cats, had to jump up for the picture.

I think you'll agree with me, that this is so much better.  It actually looks like it belongs in the kitchen.  I am not going to show you what it looks like with all the pans on top of it.  Kitchen explosion!

To improve upon my new counter, I'll purchase the plywood.  Also, I'll buy either a good quality vinyl tablecloth or some oilcloth to make a new cover, because the cats do love to jump up there for some reason and they shed.  Bleh.   The vinyl or oilcloth will clean much easier.

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