I finally was able to do a stable, strong Downward Dog today! I am really excited about my No Slip Yoga Towel that I made. I’ve always had trouble in poses such as Downward Dog because I have a terrible condition – overly sweaty hands. I know that some yoga teachers may say that it’s all part of the the pose- finding your balance even though you are slipping and remaining calm. I however really have a hard time, and know that I could improve even more if I had a stable base to begin with. I’ve tried placing my hands outside the mat on the carpet, but that doesn’t always work. And a plain towel still slips. I’ve always been interested in getting a non slip yoga towel, however those are at least $60 or more, just for a towel! And I knew I could make one myself.
I wasn’t able to find a microfiber cloth fabric at the fabric store, but I did happen to find some stretch terry at Jo-Ann Fabrics, that happened to be on sale! It’s thin enough that it’s not so bulky it doesn’t roll up well or feel too thick when on the mat. In fact, it feels perfect. It’s soft, absorbs my sweat, and gives a nice extra bit of cushioning.
This one ended up being just a little bit shorter than my mat, which turns out to be ok, since I can’t stand in any pose with my legs at either extreme edge of the mat. The next ones I make however will be the length of the mat, and I ended up with twice as much fabric as I needed since I initially overbought just in case. I just did a simple folded edge seam for all the sides. I don’t know what the correct terminology is, since my sewing skills are very basic. I initially wanted to just finish the edges with a zigzag or something similar, like the commercial towels available. However, when I did that, the fabric wouldn’t lay flat, and it wasn’t very clean looking. The folded seam doesn’t add too much height or weight to the sides so it came out nicely.
Now for the main feature of the towel, the non slip dots! I have been a huge fan of E-6000 since I started using it for making jewelry, and knew that it would be perfect for this. I initially bought it to make semi solid non slip bottoms for the sole of slippers I had been making in the winter. Still have to get around to doing that….Anyway, I practiced on a scrap piece of the terry with different types of dots, small, large, straight lines, wavy lines. The best were smallish medium dots. The larger dots ended up spreading out into an even larger flat circle, and tended to bleed through the fabric. The lines also bled through, and made the whole towel more stiff in the end.
For the dots, I placed them on the back side in an arrangement somewhat like the blue dots in this image. I actually freehanded it, and didn't measure as I went along, but they were roughly spaced out just like this. (Much like the pattern on the front!).I did this on the whole towel laid down flat in an open area and let it dry overnight. The E-6000 stuff can be kind of finicky when you are making little dots, since it tends to leave a trail from where you place the epoxy and from the tube, so you have to be very steady and work kind of quickly, so it doesn't leave a very long or thick tail.
I wasn’t able to get a great shot of the finished dots, but I tried to make this darker and added arrows to highlight some of the dots. Hopefully they are visible!
I took my towel out today to yoga practice and it was perfect! The grippy dots adhere just right to the “non slip” rubbery yoga mat surface that makes for a great sweaty-hands solution to yoga!
