A beautiful and easy way to make houseguests feel welcome is by presenting them with personalized towels adorned with colorful grosgrain ribbon. Each set should include a coordinating facecloth, hand towel, and bath towel. Vary the ribbon color for each guest. You can also include a terry-cloth robe and slippers, tying the whole bundle together with ribbon and leaving it on the night table prior to your guests' arrival.

Choose a plain, good-quality white cotton towel with a narrow dobby (the braided or flat border). If your towels don't have dobby borders, place the ribbons about 1 inch from the edge for facecloths, 2 1/2 inches from the edge for hand towels, and 3 1/2 inches from the edge for bath towels. Look for colorfast ribbon, to ensure that the dye doesn't run into the white fabric when you wash the towels. Most domestic grosgrain ribbons are colorfast and will not shrink, but it is wise to check the labels to be sure.

Tools and  Materials

• White cotton facecloths
• White cotton hand towels
• White cotton bath towels
• Grosgrain ribbon
• Straight pins
• Thread

Guest Towels with Grosgrain Ribbon How-To
1. Prewash towels, and test ribbon to be sure it is colorfast.

2. Pin ribbon to front of towel, completely covering the dobby border. Choose ribbon that is wide enough to cover the dobby; widths will vary depending on the kind of towels you are using. (Martha uses 5/8-inch-wide ribbon for the facecloth, 7/8-inch-wide ribbon for the hand towel, and 2-inch-wide ribbon for the bath towel.)

3. Machine-sew ribbon onto front of towel, tucking raw ends in and sewing as close to the edge of the ribbon as possible. It's a good idea to thread the needle with a color that matches your ribbon and to use white bobbin thread, so that the stitches are invisible on the underside.