If I ruled the world, you wouldn’t need to sew towel hanging loops. Because in my world, dish towels would never even exist without them! And all towels would be made from super absorbent, eco-friendly fabric that doesn’t leave lint behind.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.
I recently bought a new set of kitchen towels and was frustrated to find out they didn’t have a little hanging loopy guy on them. This is annoying because we usually use a few towels at a time, but not all of them can simply hang off the oven handle.
And leaving towels laying on the countertop looks messy.
I have little hooks on the wall and also on the side of my kitchen cart for towels. But because they’re pretty small hooks, they’re kind of useless if the towels don’t have an actual hanging loop.
Luckily there is an easy DIY fix! Adding a hanging loop to a dish towel takes a mere 5 minutes.
All you need is a little bit of twill tape or ribbon, your towel, some scissors, a marking tool, maybe a seam ripper, a ruler, and some needle and thread. You can sew this on by machine or hand sew it.
First, choose where you want your loop to go. I chose the corner, but you could easily add it anywhere along the border.
Easy to Sew Towel Hanging Loops – Machine Method
- Mark where you want your loop to go.
- Measure out about 3″ (7.6 cm) of tape. I cut the edges at an angle so I can tuck them into the folded over seam.
- Undo the seam along where you want to insert your loop.
- Tuck the tape under the seam.
- Sew with a regular straight stitch over the area. Try to start and end a little before and after the tape so you sew back over and lock the original stitches.
- Give the new stitches a good press and tada! You now have a hanging towel.
If your towel doesn’t have a seam along the border, then you can skip any seam ripping. Simply sew on the ribbon or tape wherever you want without worrying about the previous stitching.
You could also do this by hand! Here’s another variation of the same idea, but with a hand-sewn loop.
Easy to Sew Towel Hanging Loops – Hand Sewn Method
- Cut off a slightly longer piece of twill tape (in this case I used 6″ or 15 cm) and make a loop.
- Thread the needle and knot both ends of the thread together, so you’re using a double thread stitch.
- Push the needle through the front side and pull all the way to the knot. Come back up about 1/8″ or 3 mm away. Continue stitching in the same place for about 10 passes.
- Make a small knot and cut the excess thread. Voila!
Now you have loops and your kitchen dishtowels can conquer all matters of spills and hooks.
That’s a win!
Does the lack of hanging loops on towels annoy you too? What’s your favorite kitchen hack? Share them down in the comments!
Then pin this for later because you might need it!
thank you for this tip!!! very appreciated 🙂
Perfect, as my button hole doesn’t work on my machine, was wondering what to do so I could hang my towels I made 🥰👌
Thank you for sharing this really amazing article. I really liked the way you have presented this article.
This is exactly the how-to I was looking for. For someone like me who has IDEAS but not much sewing knowledge, this is the one I can do! Thanks for posting this and the lovely photos of your dishtowels!
I’m glad you found this useful! Stop by anytime for more inspiration!!
Thank you so much!!!
Thanks for this! I wouldn’t have thought to sew the tape into the seams. Good idea.