Reasons to be Cheerful #8 :: tea towels

I adore household textiles. I love tea towels and table cloths, runners and napkins. I love the texture and weight of this particular type of cotton and the fact that they get better the more you use and wash them. They bring colour and pattern into my kitchen every single day and make me feel cheery.

Very occasionally at weekends I am given special permission to abandon my duties as wife and mother and skip off to partake in some retail therapy. This usually involves a train or car journey to a city, any place with department stores or Large Shops big enough to contain kitchen departments. You see, when I go shopping I don't go for clothes. Or shoes. Or makeup. I go for household things. Tea towels/tablecloths are my favourites, closely followed by mugs. I have lots of both, I might show you my mugs tomorrow (ooo-er, bet the anticipation is killing you?!)

Incidentally, my above tea towel stash is stacked on a wobbly, sloping, broken kitchen shelf which is a source of much annoyance :: the tea towels frequently slide off onto the floor, along with my red spotty cake tin. The sound of a cake tin landing on the floor is actually quite loud and startling. It makes one jump in ones skin. The tea towels land quietly but are ten times more irritating as re-folding and re-stacking is required. There is lots of cursing when this happens, most especially when it happens to J. But alas it's not quite irtitating enough to get him to tackle the fixing of the shelf. He's allergic to DIY, he would rather fold tea towels and curse.

 

Comments

[Lori]

I forgot to mention how much I love your tea towels..I do!!

[Lori]

I always shop for household things too as well as books! Can never have to many of those either. :) I recently found your blog and I am so thrilled that I did. I am now crocheting and I am addicted!! I decided to start at the beginning of your blog, I don't want to miss a thing! I love England, especially the countryside and the villages. When I read your blog you get so excited over it all...you feel as I do and I have always wondered why so many seem to take all that beauty for granted..I am so glad you don't and you always express how I feel! Thanks for sharing!!!

[Funkymonkey]

Love the tea towels. Please show the mugs, they seem to breed in our house because neither myself or my husband can resist buying new designs. It'll be interesting to see if we have some of the same designs!

[Mia]

I love your stack of tea towels (I recognize several of them as Green Gate, unfortunately I cut up mine for a quilt, since I so loved the fabric and could not get hold of it otherwise than in a tea towel...) When I go shopping I also prefer to shop for household things (and fabrics... and decorating books...)) rather than shoes, clothes and make up. I am looking forward to seeing your collection of mugs (my weakness is jugs...)

[Maddy]

I've not seen such pretty tea towls before, you must tell us the brand. I can't wait to see the mugs :D

[Maddy]

I've not seen such pretty tea towls before, you must tell us the brand. I can't wait to see the mugs :D

[julia]

Another similarity, partners allergic to DIY. Ian comes over all faint if I approach him with any tasks so I do them myself, which explains why none of our shelves are quite level!
I'm in love (if that's possible, any maybe it shouldn't be!) with those tea towels, and excuse me, but why are they so clean??? Mine are used for a variety of reasons from mopping up floor spills to wiping down the slide so they are in a pitiful state. I have to admit to wincing when one of my monsters runs outside to clean off their garden toys with one of my floral beauties but I haven't got the energy to argue!
Can't wait to see the mugs, we have a collection here to rival John Lewis, can't bear to throw any away!
Julia xx