Mat-ching!

I was impressed with the success of my hair towel project, so decided to make something else for my holiday kit - a mini bath mat!  It may seem OTT but I've often remembered the bath mats at Mortlake and thought I could BYO a smaller version.

This one is a cut-down hand towel, that had been retired from use.  I rounded the corners and then topped with more of the bed cover fabric.  

It's not perfect but will be quite fine to stand on after a shower.  Looks pretty flash, eh?!  

Hair it is!

I've previously showed the contents of my brown beauty case (purchased to pair with my Gladstone bag).  

I like all the bright, happy colours and bought a similarly cheerful towel last year from Ace Drapers in Roma.  It was labelled a beach towel but I think of it as a holiday towel!

In recent times I had a yen for a co-ordinating hair towel and spent a fair bit of time looking for one that was pre-made or alternatively a bath towel I could use to sew a custom version.  

Nothing really appealed and Nick half-jokingly suggested I dye a hair towel already here.  At first I didn't think much of his suggestion but when I was up super-early yesterday morning, I did some Googling.

Earlier this year, I dyed tea-towels with - tea!  I didn't fancy a brown-ish hair towel but thought onion skins and turmeric might have potential as on-hand natural dyeing ingredients (that didn't require a mordant).

While I was boiling those, I did some running repairs on an old, white hair towel. It's elastic was stretched and some of the stitching had failed. 

I strained the skins and tumeric powder from the dye, then returned the liquid to a large pot.  I put the repaired towel in and brought the dye bath to the boil again.  

I'd already booked several activities for the day, so turned the heat off before leaving the house and left the towel to soak till my return - around 6 hours in total.

It's not as bright a colour as I hoped but I'm quite happy with the result.  

Since our very early camping days we used a particular cover on our bed.  I had some fabric from that and cut a flower motif to applique on the towel.  

When testing it became obvious the elastic loop needed shortening and I added an orange button also, sewn with bright pink thread.  Hah - how's that for a custom bath accessory, using materials already here?!