Spa Wrap

To match the towel wrap for my hair that I made the other day I also made a Spa Wrap. I used a pattern from Sew4home but I did not make the ribbon straps.

As you can see, the wrap is trimmed with a patterned fabric, has a pocket and a flower, which is removable.

The strips fo fabric for the trimming need to be 8 inches wide.  I have a large quilting ruler but it is only 6 inches wide, so I marked the 6 inches point at both side of the neatly folded fabric,

Then moved the ruler across so that the pen marks were under the 4 inch point, and cut along the edge, making 8 inch strips.

It's a great pattern but I did have a problem with the way they tell you to do the elastic.  I measured, I pinned, I checked it, I checked it again, it all fitted fine, but somehow when it came to sewing it on, something went wrong and it was no longer as tight as it had been when pinned.  So I opened up the ends of the channel that folding over the elastic has created, and threaded another piece of elastic through which I secured about 1/4 of the way in from one end.  Then I pulled the fabric up across the elastic until it had gathered as much as I needed it to, and secured the elastic 1/4 of the way in from the other end.  Then finished it off as suggested in the instructions. 

If I were to make one of these again I would do the elastic that way from the start.  Apart from anything else. making the channel on purpose would mean just two layers of towelling at the top, not 3, and believe me, sewing through the ribbing on 3 layers of towelling isn't easy.

Finally, a close up of the flower.

You can find the buttons for the sites I link up to in the sidebar.