Anthropologie inspired dish towels

Within my group of friends, wedding season is coming into full swing. I have 4 friends getting married between March and July so many of my recent projects have been gifts for bridal showers and reception decorations. I have previously made the Ballard inspired "mr." and "mrs." pillows, the Pottery Barn advent calendar, and the moss initial wreath for wedding gifts. The most recent shower I went to was a kitchen shower. Sticking with the kitchen theme, I decided to make dish towels. I am in love with all of the towels at Anthropologie (along with everything else in the store). The designs are all so unique and each look as if they are hand made. 
First I bought a set of solid white flour sack dish towels at Wal-Mart. They were $5 for a package of 5 towels. I cut 2 squares out of one of the dish towels, each small enough to fit on a piece of cardstock computer paper. Then I taped the fabric squares to the center of the paper. Next I created my designs. I decided I wanted one of the towels to have an image of a wedding cake. I put my years of doodling experience to use and sketched a wedding cake. I scanned the drawing on my computer, printed a test sheet to make sure the image was in the center of the page, and then printed it on the material (taped to the card stock). 

For the second towel, I decided to create a list of wedding anniversary gifts. I had seen this on one of the Anthro towels and thought it was so cute and actually useful. I didn't know what the traditional gifts were for most of the anniversaries so I figured other people probably didn't either. 
Once I had both of the images printed, my mom stitched each fabric square on a dish towel (Again, I really should start sewing). I asked her to not stitch directly on the edge of the material, so that the edges would be a bit raised and have a shabby look. Next I picked out the trim at Hobby Lobby. I'm sure the employees were ready for me to leave because I had the towels and probably 50 different rolls of trim spread out all over the counter. After trying out a million combinations, I found exactly what I wanted. 

So this project ended up being a joint effort with my mom; I was the designer and she was the seamstress. I wish I had taken more pictures of the process of making the towels, but for some reason, that sort of thing just slips my mind sometimes. I loved the finished dish towels, as did the bride-to-be. I have a feeling I will be playing around with more designs to make some more of these.