1:

There are two types of towels available for you to embellish. The first is a standard banded towel.

 2:

The second is a trimmed decorative towel. Buying a towel with existing trim is more luxurious right away, and requires less decorative work. Unfortunately, there aren't that many differently trimmed towels to choose from. You can trim your own towels, though, and instructions are available here in the project gallery.

 3:

Towels come in many different finishes; the two most popular being looped terry and velour terry. If you have to choose between the two, always choose the velour terry style. Velour terry is flat and easier to embroider than looped terry. If you choose looped terry, try to find a towel with small loops, since fine design detail can get lost in the loops. A good embroidery topper like Hide It can help you overcome this problem even with looped terry.

 4:

Towels come in five sizes: bath sheet, bath towel, hand towel, finger tip towel, and wash cloth. The three most popular sizes for embroidery are the bath, hand, and fingertip sizes. Bath sheets are too big to fold and display on a towel rack, and wash cloths are often too small. Try to find a towel brand that offers these different sizes. Steps five through seven show the three sizes and the recommended design size for each.

 5:

6"x10" designs or larger work best for large towels like bath towels. If you don't have a large enough hoop, try stitching one design using split, multiple hoopings.

 6:

5'x7" designs work well for hand towels.

 7:

A standard 4"x4" designs work well for fingertip towels.

 8:

Once you have embroidered some towels, you will see why they are one of the most popular items being embroidered today!