FIRST LESSONS

It's time for you to learn to make a dishtowel," said Mother. "First, I'll teach you to straighten the hem. Then we'll stamp a design on it and you can embroider it."

"Why do I have to straighten the hem?" I asked her.

"Because it is poorly done," she said. "It needs to be straightened and correctly done."

Re-hemming the towel did not make much sense to me then, and it didn't make much sense to me years later. My dish drying towels – all three of them – had big holes in them. It really had progressed beyond a point of pride. I needed to replace them. So, I bought some flour sacking at the old Big V Department Store, thinking that I would make more towels. But the need was urgent and my time short, so I simply began to use the flour sacks "as is" – no re-hemming, no embroidery.

I saw Mother examining the towel as she dried my dishes one day. "Kathy, you really ought to straighten this hem." I'm a bit of a passive resister, so I didn't say anything. But to me, this was a towel – a rag for a specific purpose. That it was clean was all that mattered to me. And I really believed that hemming one's dishtowels was a waste of time. The towels will wear out before the hem ever matters. My guess is that the women of my generation don't worry much about their dishtowels. I don't even worry much about doing the dishes! But in my mother's day, I suppose it was a point of pride that one's linens -- which might be examined by another who might happen to help you with your dishes on some rare occasion – should be neatly and prettily done up. Women really were focused in some frivolous directions. Talk about the waste of good minds . . .

I thought of this today as I prepare to embroider a set of dishtowels for Hallie. You see, she never had a hope chest. I never wanted her to think of marriage as a goal, and I'm proud of myself for encouraging her to think for herself. At the same time, she should have some embroidered dishtowels to remind her of her roots. You see in the photo to the right that it didn't exactly go well initially. I scorched the first towel but good! Mother always did that for me -- so that I wouldn't scorch it, you know. And the transfers are very old. Never mind -- I had enough towels. KW