Then lay a third towel with half on the part you just folded and the other on the bare table. Simply lay one unpaper towel flat on a table and put a second halfway on top. The underachiever in me doesn't get that, so my unpaper towels are usually just a mess of linen in a kitchen drawer.īut if you want your unpaper towels to look a little more put together (and don't have the time or inclination to fix snaps to your towels), you can use the tried-and-true tissue-folding method. Somehow, people really really love to have their unpaper towels folded, rather than just tossing them into a drawer. Want something else to sew? How about a 30-minute bento bag? (You can iron it if you're feeling particularly fancy, but not necessary.) You'll want to sew very close to the edge (basically as close to the edge as you can get) all the way around the towel, making sure to backstitch at the end to keep it from unraveling as you use them to clean or when you toss them in the laundry. Topstitching is just what it sounds like: you stitch over the top of the part you just sewed. Pin fabric together and sew almost closed Mine usually turn out a bit bigger because I find them easier to work with, but again - whatever works for you!ġ. It doesn't really matter! You can make these unpaper towels any size you like, though I like to approximate a paper towel sheet which is about 11 x 5.5 inches. If you've sewn a few projects before, these shouldn't take you more than 10-15 minutes to put one together.īefore we start, though, let's talk sizing. These unpaper towels are so simple they hardly even warrant a tutorial, but I want to lay it out to make it as simple as possible!įor context, I'm really slow at sewing and I created 8 new towels from old scrap fabric in just a few hours of on and off work. Use what you have - old fabric scraps, t-shirts, flannel shirts, or even old towels or washcloths are great! Many people recommend using diaper cloth or cotton terry cloth (to be super-absorbant, obviously) for unpaper towels.īut unless you already have some on-hand I find it self-defeating to purchase new fabric for a project that's supposed to reduce your consumption habits. If we use the estimate that the US collectively uses around 6,500,000 tons of paper towels per year, that means we’re using over 110 MILLION trees and 130 BILLION gallons of water every year just for paper towels. It’s estimated that it takes 17 trees and more than 20,000 gallons of water to make one ton of paper towels. Over $100 on something you literally buy to throw away! Probably not the biggest bit of your budget, but that frees up some extra cash for the local produce you can’t afford.Īnd finally, the benefit that's harder to see is using scrap fabric to create unpaper towels saves a ton of resources. It's estimated the average US family spends $114 per year on paper towels. There's a few reasons I really enjoy using unpaper towels.įirst, nicely sewn, uniform unpaper towels seem to make the "I could never get rid of paper towels" brigade feel slightly better about the switch. Check out their zero waste alternatives, unpaper towels! Convenience is all-too-often a deciding factor in what products people choose, but we collectively need to make decision that go beyond convenience.īut as you delve into zero waste living, you'll quickly realize. Unpaper towels are a simple, easy alternative to paper towels.įor some people, the pull of paper towels is a hard mountain to overcome.
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