Towel Toppers

My grandmother always made these towel toppers every year, and she would hand them out as Christmas gifts! As well as inheriting all of her yarn, I also inherited her towels. She always bought her towels after the season, when they were on sale. She had about 10 towels left, so with her yarn, I made the towel toppers.

You start with a super cute kitchen towel! I know these were bought after the season last year, and I just bought a whole bunch that were 50% off for next year! It'll make this super cheap gift, even cheaper!

You want to open the towel completely up, and fold it in half. Most kitchen towels have the same mirrored design on both sides.

See how it's folded completely in half? You will be working through both sides.

I use a hole punch to help me start my first round. I know some people use a smaller hook to push through both sides of the towel, but this hole punch really helps me out a lot!

It's not a standard size hole punch. It's actually one that I had laying around in my scrapbooking room. I used it for brads while scrapbooking.

Start punching holes in your towel. Not too far down, and try to space them evenly apart. I think I eyeball these 1/4" down and 1/4" apart. I do not punch the whole towel at the same time. I have done this in the past, and toward the end I usually cannot find the holes I punched. I maybe work 10-15 punches at a time. The whole towel is around 40 punches.

I use a size F hook for this part, it fits through the punched holes easier. Attach a slipknot to your hook and enter it in the first hole in your towel.

Join it with a slip stitch.

Place your hook through the second hole, and single crochet.

Continue doing so for the whole towel. Notice how my holes are not perfect? This is a time where you don't have to 100% worry about them being perfectly level or spaced apart. Eyeballing works perfectly fine! If you only punch 10-15 holes at a time, you can easily fix a fub as well.

Continue working until you have completed the whole row of the towel. Remember, I usually have around 40 stitches at this point. If you have more or less, that is perfectly fine!! Ch 3 at the end to get ready for your turn.

If you are making multiple towels with different colored skeins of yarn, I complete this step on the towels first. To me, this is the hardest and most time consuming part of the towels, so I like to get them out of the way.

To finish off the towel, this is the easy pattern I use. I now switch to a size H-J hook.

Row 1: dc in each st across the top of the towel
Row 2: ch 3, sk 1 st, dc in next st. (sk 1 st, dc in next st) until you have reached the end of the towel. If you have an uneven amount of st, sk 2 st before the last dc.
Row 3: ch 3, dc in each st across the top of the towel.
Row 4: ch 3, (sk 1 st, dc in next st) until you have reached the end.
Row 5 - ?? Repeat row 3 and 4 until you have 5 or 6 sts left to work from.

** Some times if I feel the towel is decreasing too rapidly, I will do 2 rows of dc in each st before doing a row of skipping every other st **

From this point on, dc in each of the remaining sts until it is at a desired length. My average is 8-10 rows.

At the end, ch 10. {If you are using a smaller button, ch less. If you are using a bigger button, ch more.} And sl st through the opposite end. Then sc around the ch to reinforce. Join and fasten off.

Sew a button to your crocheted piece. I normally sew mine right below the first row of the handle part.

And there you have a towel topper! These are very easy to make and make great gifts for people for Christmas! You can always work many different designs, I find this one the easiest!