Our house recently joined the air fryer trend, and I have to say that I love making potato chips (or fries) from scratch, and then adding our own seasonings. I found a chip cutting machine in a thrift store, and I felt unstoppable.
What I didn't love however, was chasing after the little guys when they fell out of the tea towel I was using to dry them off after soaking.
Solution? Make a simple chip-drying bag out of a tea towel. And of course, a little decoration never goes astray, and so Russell was borne. And his name? All my research pointed to Russet potatoes being one of the best varieties for making fries, and I thought the name would be a good way to remind me of this.
So, would you like fries with that?
I decided to start with a new tea towel for this project, especially when I found one that was in towelling and therefore hopefully extra absorbent.
To transfer the design onto the fabric, I ironed on a reverse image printed with a laser printer.
This method works quite well, although results vary with fabric type, the temperature of the iron, and the length of time the iron is on the paper. But as the print has a tendency to stick the paper to the fabric, with car you can peel back a corner to check on the progress.
For clarity while stitching, I chose to go over the design with a water soluble pen.
Split stitch produces a clean smooth line of stitching, especially when you sew with a single thread, so it lends itself to lettering and outlines, dealing well with the curves, which can be tricky when using stem or outline stitch.
This was a very straight forward project. The thickness of the fabric assisted to keep the stitching even without using a hoop or stabiliser.
Once the decorative stitching was done, I used a sewing machine to close the edges of the tea towel to create a simple open-ended bag. If you don't have access to a machine, two lines of back stitch would also secure these seams.
As it is used for food preparation , it will require regular laundering, so to protect the embroidery, I will place it in a laundry bag to wash.
And now, when I want to prepare chips, I no longer have to chose escapees out the sides of my drying towel, and I have a little smile to myself when I think "Yes, I would like fries with that."
Watch the making of Russell on YouTube.
Watch our video tutorial for Split Stitch on YouTube.
See our web blog tutorial for Split Stitch.
