April 7, 2025

We bought some new bath towels as our old ones were quite ripped and needed refreshing. So I cut the towel into squares and turned it into rags for cleaning.

Initially, I thought; that's that done. But the raw edges of the rags were going to fray so I needed to add a border.

Seems simple, but somehow this took way more iterations and time than I thought. I cut the squares just fine and then decided to use some leftover curtain lining (of which I still have loads) and cut them into long strips. I wanted to make mitred corners, which is a neat way of going around the corner, usually used for napkins and quilts and things. Anything really.

After a few attempts of me guessing how to do it, I watched a few YouTube videos and tried again. It just wasn't turning out very neat; the stitch lines were very wobbly on one side. I went back and first ironed the strips of border fabric; this way, the folds would already be in the fabric and give me a good guide to keep everything straight and aligned when I'm sewing. Ironing before sewing is sewing rule 101. I was being lazy at first.

This came to a road block as my iron stopped working. No idea why. I paused the project for a few weeks while I deliberated buying a new iron. Then just when I was about to buy one online, I plugged my iron back in and it worked. Who knows. 

While the iron was still working, I ironed all the folds in the strips and machine-stitched the first side all around the rags.

In the end, I had to hand stitch the second side instead of using the machine. With hand stitch I was able to do an invisible stitch line which just looked a lot better. No more wobbly ugly lines.

It took a few evenings of hand stitching, around 10 rags in total. But it's done now. Reasonable sewing quality. They're rags, so doesn't need to be perfection, but it's done! Best part about it is to tick it off the list and put the rags away! 

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