I wanted to make a little gift for someone, and I needed it the same day so I decided to fancy up a couple plain white cotton dish towels, which I had on hand, with a printed fabric border.
Just in case you are interested, here's what I did:
My dish towel measured 17.5"w x 36"l. For the border I cut a piece of printed cotton that measured 19.5" x 6" ~ {this piece needs to be about 2 inches longer than the width of your towel} This leaves an extra inch on each side, which gets folded in so the border is the same length as the end of the towel
I placed the border fabric {with the ends folded in} right-side down on the back of the towel and pinned the long edge together.
I sewed along that edge with a 1/2" seam allowance.
I opened out the border, turning the towel to the right side, and pressed the seam allowance toward the border.
Then I pressed the raw edge of the border under by 1/2".
I folded 2.5 inches of the border strip up {wrong sides together} to the right-side edge of the towel...
...and stitched along close to the edge of the border as well as the two ends of the border strip.
When finished, the border will completely enclose the end of the towel and will look the same on both sides.
A great way to use up some odds and ends of fabric...you could even make the border a patchwork of different prints.
Happy Sewing.