Add a little love (and a sweet kitty!) to your kitchen decor with this Valentine Kitty Tea Towel. This free sewing pattern is quick to make and features a sweet cat applique with hearts overhead. It’s perfect for Valentine’s Day but also cute year round!
If you have cats you know they’re masters of expression. Sometimes it’s annoyance. Or impatience. Or the most common – feed me now. But every once in a while you catch that look of pure adoration, like you’re their whole world and they’re so happy to be in your presence.
When my daughter came home from college for Christmas break, the cats soaked up all the attention they’d been missing. At one point I caught our littlest kitty Charlotte curled up in her lap, gazing up at her with total devotion. That moment was the inspiration for my Valentine Kitty Tea Towel.
Look at this happy kitty! I can’t decide if she’s lying down waiting for a belly rub, or stretching her body up to be as close to me as possible. But either way, those hearts floating up from her head shows what she’s thinking.
The applique design is simple and is perfect for using scraps. There are some tight curves around those smaller hearts, but if you take it slow and hand crank where necessary it’s not difficult.
If you want to skip a few steps, you can start with a purchased plain tea towel and just applique the cat and heart design.
Honestly, though, I prefer to just sew the tea towel. It’s fast and easy to do. The yardage costs about the same as buying a tea towel, but the quality of the fabric will be better. You can get two tea towels from just one yard of fabric. And the home dec weight fabric makes a nice sturdy tea towel.
Finished dimensions are approximately 20” wide x 28” tall.
For other fun applique tea towel patterns, see my Garden Vegetables Tea Towel, Applique Pumpkin Tea Towel, or Pumpkin Pie Tea Towel.
Supplies
Home dec weight cotton – 1 piece, 22” wide x 30” tall. 1 yard will be enough to make 2 towels.
Fusible webbing – ¼ yard or large scraps
Fabric scraps for applique. I used a solid pink fabric for the cat, and pink prints for the hearts
Free Pattern – Valentine Kitty Tea Towel
Sew the Towel
Hem all 4 sides of your 22” x 30” piece of home dec weight cotton with a 3/8” double fold hem. For neat corners I like to miter the corners but it’s not necessary. If you don’t know how to miter corners on a double fold hem, use my tutorial here.
A double fold hem is just what it sounds like. Fold the edge over twice so the raw edge is completely encased, pressing as you go. Sew the hem in place by stitching close to the folded edge.
Create the Valentine Kitty Applique Design
Place Cat applique along the bottom edge of the towel, centered horizontally. Follow manufacturer’s instructions to fuse it in place.
Topstitch around the Cat to secure. As you’re topstitching, you’ll also need to add in some detail lines to define the tail and the paws. Use the Placement and Stitching Guide for most accurate placement of the topstitching.
Because the detail lines define the shape of the Cat, use contrasting thread to make sure your topstitching lines show up. I used gray for the Cat body lines, and black for the whiskers and eyes.
The easiest order for topstitching the Cat is this:
First stitch the outline of the main body of the Cat, starting at the lower left corner and continuing around the head and then back down to the bottom, defining the right side of his right leg.
Illustrations for the rest of these instructions show a close-up of the portion of the tea towel with the applique.
Now start again at the lower left corner of the Cat, this time stitching along the bottom all the way, continuing up the right side of the tail and then around the top and back down, stopping where the tail joins the Cat body.
Use a temporary marking pen to mark the curvy lines that define the Cat’s legs. Topstitch along those lines.
Use a temporary marking pen to mark the whiskers and eyes. Topstitch the whiskers on your sewing machine. Use French knots to make the eyes.
The details are now all stitched on your Cat. Look at that sweet face!
Now let’s add those hearts above the Cat so we can all know how much that kitty loves us.
Use the Placement and Stitching Guide to place the Heart appliques. Pay attention to the numbering on the pattern, so the largest Hearts are at the bottom and the smallest ones at the top.
Fuse in place then topstitch around each Heart to secure.
The tight curves can be difficult, especially on those small Hearts. Take it slow, reduce your stitch length, and hand crank around the tightest curves.
Your Valentine Kitty Tea Towel is done!!
If you love this kitty tea towel, you’ll be sure to love these other tutorials and patterns from Anne:
Color Block Heart Banner – Free Sewing Pattern
Crossbody Heart Purse – Free Sewing Pattern
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