EMBROIDERED DISHTOWELS

Years ago, when I was still adjusting to being a wife and mother, my mother took a dishtowel from the drawer in my kitchen and gave it a second look. “Kathy!” she said sharply, “You need to straighten the hems of this towel and embroider it.” (Can’t you just hear her?)

Of course, that was not my priority nor did I consider that I had the time. I didn’t do it – I never did it – but for the ensuing 40 years, I have had no end of guilt over it. In fact, it became a buffalo sinking deeper into the mire of my “someday” list with each passing year. The problem is not the embroidery but straightening the hems. I assure you that I know how to do it. It just doesn’t seem – well, very important. It was important to Mother's generation, though, and I value that.

The standard of the retro housewife has weighed heavily on me. Such was my guilt that I simply kept few towels on hand. I’ve been hanging just one dishtowel – the one I finished while attending machine embroidery classes ten years ago. I wash it and hang it back up. It’s looking a little tired these days.

Occasionally Mike will question this practice. “Can’t we have more than one dishtowel?”

“I have the towels,” I tentatively respond, “but I have to straighten the hems and embroider them.”

“Oh,” he says, as if he understands. Maybe he does. His mother and mine came out of the same era.

Yes, it’s true that I have a stash of dishtowels – a real collection. I buy plain dishtowels whenever I see them, and each time I vow that according to the creed of the retro housewife, I will straighten the hems and embroider them before I use them. Some of the towels are quite lovely and probably don’t need straightening. As for the embroidery, I have three embroidery machines, and they make embroidering so much fun! I can do this, I tell myself, but the years still passed with no embroidered towels.

I am happy to report that I finally did it. I sat down at my Brother PE-770 and embroidered four dishtowels. Why did I put it off? It was such fun! Maybe I’ll do more. 

(No, I didn't straighten the hems. Not yet anyway.) KW