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
5 comments:
Very nice (and handy).
Yay for you! And who cares about the hem? The more perfect towels are, the harder it is for me to use them. Besides, if we wear towels out, that just means we get to make more! Win, win!
So true, Chris!
The embroidering didn't go smoothly in a couple of cases. I had a machine failure that ruined one design, so I just turned it to the other end of the towel and stitched away. That towel might become a window wiper. And in another case, I thought I was stitching the pumpkin design when it was actually apples. I just started over with red thread.
And I think you're right about nice towels. They seem to be more decorative than useful.
I bet Grandma wouldn't believe how fast you embroidered all of those!
Yes, Hallie, Grandma would be amazed! It's hard to imagine her embroidering by machine, though. I'm not sure she would have done that.
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