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This unpaper towels DIY tutorial is going to save money and save you from making so much waste in your home! Did you know that we throw away so much paper each year in the form of regular paper towels? With this in mind I decided to make a paper towel alternative. I made some frugal, eco friendly reusable unpaper towels or reusablekitchen toweltostop the need for buying paper towels. So here is an easy sewing project and step by step tutorial on how to make these DIY reusable paper towels for yourself!
*This is a collaborative post – for more details please see myDisclosure Policy
*This post has been updated – it was first published in February 2019
Contents
- DIY Reusable Kitchen PaperTowels Tutorial – How To Make Your Own Reusable Kitchen Roll
- Unpaper Towels DIY – You will need
- Reusable Paper Towels DIY Method 1 – using the overlocker
- How To Make Reusable Paper Towels Method 2 – using just a regular sewing machine
- Method 3 – Using Brushed Cotton Instead Of Towelling
- Adding Snaps – Attaching the Reusable Kitchen Roll Together
- Love This Unpaper Towels DIY Tutorial? Why Not Read My Other Posts?
DIY Reusable Kitchen PaperTowels Tutorial – How To Make Your Own Reusable Kitchen Roll
this Idea!
These reusable cloth paper towels are such an easy make, and a brilliant way to repurpose old towels, tea towelsand terry cloths. If you make plenty of these reusable towels, then you can have a full reusable paper towels roll. Once you have used them for cleaning, just throw them in the washing machine and you’ll always have a stash of reusable paper towels on the go. You will never need to buy regular kitchen towel paper again!
Furthermore, I find that they come in handy for all kinds of jobs, not just as a paper towel replacement. The size of none paper kitchen towels I make fit into my Swifer mop as spare cloth mop heads. They are great to use as dish towelsor non paper wipes when out and about. And they are also great for tiny reusable hand towels.
I am going to share threeways of making reusable unpaper towel.
Unpaper Towels DIY – You will need
- An old towel,terry cloth or bamboo towelling if you wish to make reusable bamboo paper towels. Or brushed cotton. I like to use old flannel/brushed cotton bedsheets.
- Some cotton fabric, either new or from old clothes. I love finding old cotton shirts from the thrift shop.
- arotary cutterandcutting mat(which I find best for cutting even squares, though you can do it with scissors)
- akam-snap kit( sharp hole tool and kam snap pliers)
- a ruler orquilting cutting square
- a sewing machine or a serger/overlocker. Find a greatsewing machine for quilting.
Reusable Paper Towels DIY Method 1 – using the overlocker
Using the rotary cutter and measuring square, cut the old towel into squares (mine were 9 inches square). And do the same with the top fabric.
Take a square of towel and a top layer and put them WRONG sides together. This means that the right sides of the towel are facing outwards.
Overlock (serge) all four sides of the assembled towel.
And then to strengthen the towel and prevent it from bagging in the wash thus making the reusable paper towels washable, sew a straight line diagonally from corner to corner.
These are really quick and easy to make, but you may think that they look a little less refined. And what if you don’t have a serger?
Well here is how to make really neat and pretty unpaper towels.
How To Make Reusable Paper Towels Method 2 – using just a regular sewing machine
For method 2 I cut out my squares exactly the same way using a rotary cutter and measuring square. This time I used terry cloth.
Pin the upper and lower layer RIGHT sides together this time. And mark on one edge a 2-3 inch gap. This is where you are going to start and stop sewing to allow to turn it inside out.
Sew around the edge of the pinned squares, using the edge of the presser foot as a guide. I made sure I did a few backstitches at the start and end where I had placed the dots. This means that a 6mm seam allowance is used. (You can use more, but I wanted to keep these towels as close to the size of the other towels as possible)
Once I had finished at the second dot, I clipped the corners close to, but not into, the stitching. If you have done a larger seam allowance I would cut it back at this point to 5mm or so, but I didn’t need to do that.
Turn the whole thing inside out so that the right sides are on the outside one more, pushing out the corners as much as possible. And give it a good press, so that the edges are crisp.
Where the turning gap is, make sure that this gets a really good press.
Then sew a topstitch about 3mm from the edge all the way around the edge of the towel. This serves to make the towel edges crisp, but also seals the gap in the edge where we turned it inside out earlier.
Again, sew diagonally from corner to corner, as this stops the towel from getting misshapen and baggy when it is washed.
Method 3 – Using Brushed Cotton Instead Of Towelling
Having made reusable paper towels for a number of years now, in my view the best reusable paper towels I have made are using this last method. Using brushed cotton or old flannel to make the unpaper towels results in the finished towels not needing snaps to form a reusable paper towel roll, they just cling together so well.
Furthermore, If you use brushed cotton, you may even try be able to make no-sew reusable kitchen roll, as you could use pinking shears to prevent frayinginstead of sewing the edges.
To make these I personally like to just use one layer of brushed cotton cloth and serge the edges. They make brilliant dusters and reusable swiffer mop cloths. But you can also make the cloths in a double thickness and use one of the previous two methods.
Adding Snaps – Attaching the Reusable Kitchen Roll Together
You can leave these towels and just fold them or present them in a box. Lots of people don’t want to use fastening as they are concerned that it will scratch surfaces, but I personally have never found that, so this is how to attach the kitchen roll together.
I made 4 of each type of towel.
Attaching them together is where the Kam-snaps come into play. Using the sharp tool, you make a hole in each corners of each towel.
To the left 2 corners of each towel, you attach a Kam-snap with a female attachment on the cotton side and the smooth part on the towelling side.
Female Kam-snap attachments
to the right two corners, you attach a Kam-snap with the male attachment on the towelling side and the smooth part to the cotton side.
Male Kam-snap attachment
Thus the reusable kitchen roll will fit together and slightly overlap.
These are so useful to have as they can all snap to each other. I like to roll mine up on the towel stand just like a regular paper towel roll. They can be washed again and again, and you can just keep clipping them back on once they have been washed.
At the end of the day, I much prefer to do a reusable paper towels bulk making session once I have several towels or an old bedsheet to upcycle. Packs of these unpaper towels make great gifts or are worth making to sell in your little home shop. And the best thing about making these from all cotton fabric is that once they have reached the end of their life that these biodegradable paper towels can be composted!
What if you don’t want to make your own? There are lots of reusable paper towels for sale online.You can find some great price reusable paper towels bamboo cloths and swedish dishcloths here, with free shipping if you buymore than a certain amount inyour cart.
Love This Unpaper Towels DIY Tutorial? Why Not Read My Other Posts?
I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial how to make unpaper towels. I have lots of other sustainability reviews and zero waste tutorials on my site so why not go tsake a look?
Love these? Why notmake some unspongesto go with them? A great zero waste kitchen swap alternative to bacteria breeding scrubbers.
Or try making some reusable sandwich wraps – a great zero waste alternative to plastic sandwich bags for food and lunches.
Why not pin this for later and make your own reusable kitchen roll?
