EXPERIMENTING WITH TOWEL TOPPERS

I never deliberately intended to make towel toppers- you know, those frumpy crocheted thingies that attach a hand towel to your fridge door handle. I always thought they belonged in the category with cross stitched kleenex box covers and dolls with huge crocheted hoop skirts that conceal a roll of toilet paper. Usually sold by pathetic old ladies at church yard sales and such. Not me.

Then a friend begged me to make her some Christmas towel toppers, and even provided the towels. She insisted on paying me. I happened to have one in my posession that I used as a model. The topper was crocheted with cheap acrylic yarn (you know how I love that!). It had been hanging on my fridge door a month or two, and the acrylic strap was already badly frayed. No acrylic! The logical fiber seemed like cotton, since a hand towel is subject to a lot of hard washing. So I dug out some matching green Peaches & Creme and a crochet hook, and did my best to copy the model. The result looked OK, but felt stiff, thick, and heavy (click to enlarge). I hate to think how long it is going to take to dry in our humid summers! Seemed like knitting was the way to go.


Funny how there are so few patterns available for towel toppers, especially knitted ones. The vast majority are simple garter stitch. It was a pleasure to run across the delightful cable knit towel topper shown below, referenced HERE.

For the next topper I chose a 1 by 1 rib stitch. This one came out much softer and more drapey, but was still quite heavy (click to enlarge).

I moved on to a lighter weight cotton chenille, thinking that the chenille would be soft and absorbent like the towel. I chose Brioche rib for the topper, making the decreases line up so that the top looked like a series of wedges. Unfortunately all of my stitch work was hidden in the fuzzy chenille, but at least the topper was light and drapey (click to enlarge).


For the last topper I chose a light sport weight cotton with a smooth texture. I wanted to make something lacy, and ran across this delightful lace Christmas tree in Lesley Stanfield's The New Knitting Stitch Library (page 137). Book available HERE



What a perfect motif for a Christmas towel topper! This one is hands down my favorite! If I ever make a Christmas towel topper again, this will be my design of choice (click to enlarge).



CLICK HERE TO SHOP