Travel Gadget Organizer from a Tea Towel

In July, JoAnn Fabrics had their summer line of things marked down to about 70% off.  I always have my eye open for cute tea towels, as they are a nice sized, already-hemmed, sturdy piece of fabric...just right for a little project like a pillow cover, or this!

Martha Stewart had emailed me this cool idea for creating a gadget organizer out of a tea towel...wasn't that nice of her?! :) This towel was just right for this project.

It's super easy, just requiring a few straight lines of stitching...ready?  Ok, I hope you can see from the photo how it is  folded.  You fold the bottom of vertically-laid towel up about 2/3 of the way, then fold it down, and up again...letting the first fold show alittle bit under the second fold.  This is kind of like an accordian pleat.  It will create 2 layers of pockets.

Next use a ruler and a disappearing ink fabric pen to mark off your pockets.  I wanted four equal sized pockets across, but you can customize it for your needs.

My pockets were all about 4 inches wide.

Since I was dealing with a large plaid, I had to try to keep my plaid lines straight, even though my towel wasn't really 'square'.  I sewed the two outside seams first.  Then the middle seam, and lastly the two outer pocket seams.  

Sew super easy!  (Pun?  Yes!)  When I travel I tend to forget which bag I put my camera cord in, or my ear buds.  With this organizer I have a go-to place for those items as well as extra batteries, my phone charger, bluetooth charger, etc!  I took it on my next trip, and it really was a help.  Yay!

Can you see that the pockets are staggered?  The first set of pockets are alittle higher than the second set, so that I can easily see what is in the top set and the bottom set.

I fold it into thirds and tie it with a gross grain ribbon.  I'd like to attach a tie permanently, but haven't taken that step yet.

Thanks for stopping by!!  Your comments and visits are always greatly enjoyed!

Blessings,
Donna

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