I used a self-adhesive, tear-away stabilizer to do the decorative machine stitching. I attempted this same project a few months ago without the stabilizer and it was a big pain in the you-know-what. The end results last time were okay but not great. This time everything went way better. Here's a close-up of the stitching.
I paired the towels with some hand knit dishcloths and gave them as a wedding gift to a friend whose kitchen is brown and tan themed. To be honest, I wasn't completely thrilled with how all these shades of brown came together but it was too late to turn back by the time I realized I was pushing the limits of this color palette. I do find comfort in the fact that when you separate the towels from the dishcloths, everything looks fine.
These towels were a very fun and simple project. I would like to make more of them in the future. My current sewing machine has over forty decorative stitches so there will be lots of room for experimentation.
