UnPaper Towel Tutorial

A couple of years ago, my dude and I had committed to ridding our house of paper towels. We just decided that they were expensive, and wasteful, and really- how much extra effort does it take to throw a cloth in the wash? Since moving to our current place, we have fallen off the bandwagon. The ability to store bulk items in our pantry had us in disposable paper product heaven.

This week, after roaming about on Pinterest for a while, I came across a picture of “unpaper towels”.  Snappable homemade cloths that fit on a regular paper towel roll.  Brilliant!  It was just the push I needed to recommit to cloth. They looked easy enough to make, so I decided to go for it!

First step- pick your fabric!  I had a bunch of remnants from other projects that were hanging around.  I also picked up some terrycloth from Joann Fabrics.  When I make more of these in the future (hello Christmas presents!) I will probably go to Goodwill for towels and use those instead of the terry.  The colors are bright and fun, but they were a bit pricey.  

Step 2-Wash, dry, and iron your fabric. (and no, you cannot skip this step!)

Step 3- Figure out what size you want the finished towels to be.  I decided to make “half sheets” that were 7"x 12".  Add in your seam allowance before you cut- I gave myself an inch, so my cut pieces were 8" x 13".

When I work, I love listening to podcasts. It’s my zen time.  My two favorites are Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff You Should Know. This project was a SYSK type of project.

I chose to sew my cloths with the “turn and topstitch” method. It was a little more time consuming because of all the ironing, but I prefer this look. Place your terrycloth against the wrong side of your fabric. You could pin them if you wanted, but I skipped that step.  I wasn’t going for perfection, I was going for volume! Since I did narrow sheets, I just sewed three sides, and left the fourth open to flip them.

Then I trimmed the excess seam allowance, careful not to clip my seams.

Then I ironed the seams flat, and folded the fourth side in towards the center and pressed with the iron. My feline overlord observed this process.

 

After pressing, I sewed all around the top seams to close the fourth side, and also give it a nice finished look.

After doing this 80 billion times (ok, 18, but still) I moved on to applying my snaps!

I ordered KAM snaps and pliers online, and was excited to see how they worked.

First, you measure where you want the hole (I really should have taken more time to do this- some of them came out wonky).  They provide you with an awl to poke the holes.

Then, you place the cap through the hole, and place your end over the pointy part of the cap.

Then it’s crunch time. Literally.

This was actually relatively challenging.  There is a very small metal head in the center of the pliers, and if you didn’t line it up exactly with the center of your snap, it doesn’t work and the snap comes apart.  I got better as time went on, but there may have been several expletives blurted out in the process.

Edited 8/14/12 to add:  So, the reason I had such a hard time getting the snaps to work was because the pliers came in the mail with the wrong size cap attachment on them.  If I was slightly less impatient, I would have actually stopped to read the directions.  If the cap hangs even slightly over the edge of the black part of your pliers, it is too small.  The entire cap should sit right in the hole.  When the right size attachment is on, it is insanely easy to do perfectly every time.

I made a ghetto thrifty paper towel “tube” out of some leftover mat board held together with packing tape.  That’s how I roll- get it?

And…the finished product!

At home on the counter. Much better!

Have any of you attempted your own unpaper towels?  How did the snaps hold up after going in the wash? 

Update 8/14/12- I have figured some things out after using/washing these bad boys, and making several more sets.  It is advisable to sew a squiggly line diagonally from corner to corner before adding the snaps.  Without the middle part of the layers all sewn together, they separate when you are wiping things up and when they go in the wash.  The snaps (that have now been applied correctly) seem to be quite permanent. They also have not scratched any surface I’ve wiped with them, which I had been slightly concerned about.  Hope this helps!