Saw the cutest kitchen accessory at Buc-ee’s. (Which for those of you outside the great state of TEXAS – is another story altogether). And of course, because it screamed my name, I just had to buy it. It was a Kitchen Boa. As I’ve said before, I like to spend time in the kitchen. But I’m forever hunting down a towel to wipe the counter or my hands with. I always put it on the oven door handle. I’m always hunting down hot pads to take stuff out of the oven or microwave. I always put them back in the drawer where I got them. It is ridiculous how they are never where I left them. ?
Anyway, I thought this cute little towel would be the answer to all my problems. And I was not wrong. Put it around my neck and waa laa…I don’t hunt for the towel or pot holder anymore. Now the problem is…I only bought one. And it’s getting used…a lot. I’m spending more time in the kitchen because of this darn COVID thing since I can’t do some of the other stuff I want to do. I obviously need more than one. But it wasn’t cheap…like $25. Amazon has similar prices. Then I got to looking at it and thought it doesn’t look too hard. #heyiwanttotrythat
Since I have a stash of fabric, I start pulling out some of the cute cotton patterns I have. Some flames (my son’s working on becoming a firefighter so I had to buy it), chili peppers (you know I love the hot stuff), an awesome leopard/jaguar print and a few solid ones too. I figure you take the pattern material and add a solid towel and take the solid fabric and add a pattern towel. How hard can it be? Since I want the patterns on the fabric to run long way down the boa, I determined I needed about 1 ½ yard of fabric. Each 1 ½ yard of fabric will make 5ish boas. I’m measuring mine at about 8 ½ – 9 inches wide (folded in ½ and then sewed together means they end up about 4 inches wide) and 54 inches long.
Found some cute BBQ towels at Hobby Lobby and they were on sale 66% off since it’s spring/summer clearance time. $2 for a hand towel…can you say SCORE! Also found some Chili Pepper towels on Amazon. Not as cheap but super cute. Here’s the link.Chili Pepper HandTowel
Ordered some 100% black plain weave from CoCo B Kitchen & Home for $3.50…that’s a steal. They have all kinds of hand towels to choose from and shipping is free if you order $50. So I ordered $50 worth. Picked out several colors to go with various pieces of my cotton fabric stash. Here’s a link to their website as well. https://www.cocobhome.com/ Figure these things will make great gifts and I’m going to make some and put them in my Etsy and Amazon Handmade store as well. Here’s how you make them:
- Cut your cotton fabric about 54″ long and 9″ wide (see Boa 1 below)
- Fold it lengthwise so the pattern is to the inside
- Stitch a 3/8″ seam the whole 54″ length (see Boa 2 & 3 below)
- Iron the seam open
- Turn the piece right side out and iron so the seam is in the middle of the piece
- Cut your towel in half
- You have a couple of options here:
- Do a long basting stitch along the whole cut portion of the towel (I used the 4.8 stitch length on my machine)
- Fold the towel in thirds so the middle third is the part showing and fold each of the other thirds into thirds on the back. Then do the same long basting stitch along the cut port of the towel (again I used 4.8 stitch length on my machine) (See Boa 4, 5, & 6 below)
- Gently gather the towel by pulling your long stitch until you get it gathered as tight as possible. Go slow and be gentle so you don’t break the thread (you be doing this all again if you break the thread). It takes some effort and patience but you should be able to get it to about 4 inches across gathered. (See Boa 7 below)
- Take your cotton fabric and turn the end under about 3/4 of an inch. Stick the towel into the end of the fabric, tucking it as evenly as possible. Make sure you’ve got the seam and the back of the towel on the same side. I’ve screwed this up and ended up with the seam on the top side with the pretty part of the towel.
- Sew the fabric with the towel inside. It will be thick and may require your help to move it along during sewing. (See Boa 9 below)
Make sure you backstitch at the beginning and end to keep everything nice and secure. Also don’t forget to turn your stitch length back to your normal one…I have forgotten more than once and had to redo this step a couple of times.
Now you’ve got a great, useful and handmade Kitchen Boa!
A couple of things to note: · The towels that work best for this are cotton twill type or cotton woven type. Terry towels do not work for these. They do not gather well and they are just too thick to sew through when gathered. · You really can make these any length you want. All you have to do is adjust the length of the primary cotton fabric you are using. For the extra tall folks in my family (my husband is 6’4” and my son is 6’6”) I added about 6-10 inches to the length so it would fit them better. You can also make one for the up and coming young cooks in your life. Just make it a little shorter to fit them. Whatever it takes to encourage those around us to partake in the fun of the kitchen or grill. Better still, make a matching set…one for mom/dad and one for the kids. Super cute