Decorating a Dish Towel

I bought a 3 pack of these dish towels for about $4 and decided to 'dress them up' to make  a nice hostess gift.
I used the dedicated embroidery machine at the Tech Shop http://www.techshop.ws to do this project. 

I hooped the towel with a tear away stabilizer underneath and chose the colors needed. (I didn't stick to the pattern's suggestions and instead chose from what I had on hand and what the Tech Shop http://www.techshop.ws provided)

I listened to a book on CD while the machine hummed away. That is until the machine stopped humming. It made a horrible screaming sound. I asked the staff at Tech Shop if it was self lubricating. We all agreed that whatever it was it sounded too bad to continue. Staffers looked on line. Looked for suitable oil. In the end, just taking it off and rethreading and restarting the machine resolved whatever issue it had. Machines are a mystery. Happily, I hadn't fiddled much with the setting of the design and was able to pick up where I left off. (The machine has the ability to skip ahead without actually stitching)

When it was (finally) done all that was left was to snip threads and tear away the tear away.

and now I have a nice hostess gift