Edit: I’ve put in an order for towels, and they have all been snapped up. Everyone who has already emailed me will be getting their towels, but there’s no leftovers for anyone else!
I’ll be doing another order next year, probably start of January some time. If you want towels through that, let me know so I know how many to order. Sooz will be doing an order after that, but she’ll just be back from up North and trying to sort out her life, so pickups only. If you’re in Melbourne and want to save on postage, let her know. If you want towels before christmas, you’ll have to source them yourself, I’m afraid! Good luck and looking forward to seeing everyone’s creations!
It all started with this photo from Sooz.
I commented that I thought maybe I’d start collecting tea towels – you have to love a beautiful thing that is made with care and love and art, but you can see and touch every day. And it’s useful, so it’s not like you’re spending money on frivilous things! Amiright? I’m totally right.
Nautical cotton bar towels by branch handmade
So Sooz and I started an email conversation in which we talked about tea towels and spammed each other with excellent examples, and mused over craft.
The heated teacup by the heated teacup
And then today (this was a two day conversation. Of course.) after much discussion of where to buy blanks, and a firm decision on each of our parts to actually do some creating, I said ‘maybe we should do a swap!’
Seahorse teatowels by humble collection
After some excitement on our part, and talking about logistics (mostly sooz, with me going ‘sure. Sounds… good! yay tea towels!), Sooz blogged it, and we emailed some of our crafty friends about it.
And right now I am super glad it is Sooz who is organising it, because it’s hit twitter and apparently mixtape and craftapalooza tweeted it along with lots of other crafty types, and the sign ups are coming in. And it’s only been up a couple of hours! Scary. Exciting. Lots of cool and crafty people!
Redwork teatowels byNorththreads
If you’re interested, head over to Sooz’s post, and check out the info. The deal is, you have to hand embelish your towel in some way. Print, sew, embroider, whatever takes your fancy. You can sign up for 2, 5 or 10 partners, (that’s 2, 5 or 10 towels for you to send and recieve) and you have to be willing to post overseas.
Tea towel summer swap by mindboggld
Signups are open from now to mid january, to allow for christmas madness. Although, if you’re printing, why not whip up a big batch and distribute to your meatworld friends as well as us electronic buddies? Actual mail outs will be first week of march.
Tea towels should be linen, because they last longer and are generally nicer. I will be ordering a bunch from here in the next few days, so if you want some let me know and you can have them at cost plus shipping. Should be about $3-$4 plus shipping depending on how many we get. Of course, feel free to sourse your own, or order your own from there.
Jack Russell towel by DownZipper
If you want to grab some off of me, please sign up for the swap first (email sooz on sooz.com {at} gmail.com) so we know you are part of the swap and not some crazy 
Then email me on kaviare {at} gmail.com and let me know how many you were after and your address, and how you’d like to pay me. DON’T pay me yet! I’ll let you know when I have the towels, and then give you my paypal or bank transfer details, as you prefer.
I still have my eye on this one, though
5 comments
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November 17, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Sarah
I saw that Brookish one, and want it so very badly. As well as nearly everything else in her shop.
November 17, 2009 at 6:25 pm
jac
And here I thought I had bought everything possible from Etsy. BRB.
And then I’ll go over to Sooz’s and sign up! I mean, the fact that I have had 7 days of the week stamped teatowels for about 3 years, and approximately 1.5 of them have managed to become embroidered in that time, well, that means nothing, right?!
November 17, 2009 at 6:34 pm
suse
Oh snap! I ordered that Mr Darcy tea towel the other day after I went on a tea towel viewing frenzy (was meant to just be window shopping but slipped and bought it) following the delivery of the ultra cool Eye Chart tea towel by Auntie Cookie (small plug there).
What I’m trying to say is that I think I have to be in this swap. Can you dye tea towels (shibori, tie-dye) or do they have to be printed? I ask because I’ve never screen printed but dyeing (yarn) is my thing, so …
Oh, and “meatworld friends”?? You crack me up, woman.
November 18, 2009 at 6:54 am
Sara
Hi Kate,
Just popping over to say hi and thanks for the lovely comments you left on my blog. Mouthy is awesome and so are you!
I think you should get the tat. It’s a lovely way to honour your dad. (And besides, if you gained the respect of bogans, that’s like the majority of Australia backing you.) If you think you’ll get sick of seeing it, put it somewhere where you’ll forget it’s there!
So you’re the other genius behind this swap hey? I’m very excited about it. And bloody nervous too – there are some seriously gorgeous tea towels out there and I worry my designs aren’t up to scratch. I shall have to work on them! That might mean actually finishing a craft project I’ve started. This is a first.
Very pleased to erm, meet you. I love your blog – I’ll be back!
November 26, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Craftastrophies
[...] do some more for myself, to keep, and never did. Then I was looking for potential patterns for the tea towel swap, and I went ‘oh, yeah!’. The deer is in a couple of flickr groups and every now and [...]