Talk Derby To Me Embroidered Kitchen Towel

I spent some free time last night doing a fun little Derby towel for my kitchen.  This phrase is all over Louisville, where I live, as we gear up for the Kentucky Derby.  (I think it started many years ago with Roller Derby but was picked up by a shop called A Taste of Kentucky and now we all use it).  The actual horse race is about 2 minutes long but it is important to our town so we spend a couple of weeks celebrating it with a bunch of other activities, including a huge fireworks show, a steamboat race, a hot air balloon race, bed races, a marathon, concerts, parties, and dozens of other events meant to create a festive atmosphere to encourage visitors and citizens to spend money and celebrate!  If it is good for Louisville, I am all for it.

To make my project...

Screenshot from my Embrilliance file for this project

I used Embrilliance Enthusiast software to remove the bottom stitched elements of a frame I got at Boutique Fonts.  Click here to link to that file.

I used Embrilliance Essentials to place and size the horse and font.  The horse is from Embroidery Online.  Click here to link to the horse file.  The font is from Jolson's; click here to link to that one.  It is available as a .bx file so it is super easy to use with this software!  Embrilliance allowed me to print off my finished design at actual size so I used that to guide placing the design on my towel.

The towel was pre-washed before embroidering.  Fabric was sewn to the bottom of the towel after embroidering to make it look a little more "boutique" style.  I hooped two sheets of tear-away stabilizer and floated the towel on the hoop.  I used water soluble stabilizer (WSS) as a topper.  The threads were from Metro.

I was really pleased with this project and I think it would make a fun gift for a Derby party hostess.

Thanks for checking my post.  Since this is a short one, there is no "Quick Links" list.  Just click above for those.  (None are affiliate links; just regular links in the hope that it is helpful to you.)  I am happily stitching whenever I get a chance these days!  Hope you are crafting whenever you can too!