What do you do with tea towels??

[Hannelore N.]

I work with special needs teenagers in a local school. We have a small room in our department called 'The Retreat'. It is used for meetings, and for children who need a quiet place to calm down, or for work. The room has no windows, the walls are plain grey, and the space is dominated by a dark grey board. For years I have used that board to display quilts/wallhangings, often made especially for that space, in order to make the room more cheerful. I change them about three times a year. So, the latest one, pinned up this morning, has a tea towel at the centre that I was given as a gift some years ago, and just found too nice to use. Some of the kids have already asked other TAs to read these tongue twisters to them, and they found it amusing when the TA stumbled over the words. And this afternoon one of the English teachers stood in front of the board and was copying some of the tongue twisters into a notebook. Here are pictures:







So, what interesting or unusual things have you done/made with tea towels??

[E.M. T.]

Absolutly nothin' !!! :P But this little quilt is just super, Lorchen !!

[E.M. T.]

Dutch traditional tea towels are very nice, i did with them few years ago some shopping bags and gave to people for Christmas, they loved it, and using them all year long .
beautiful quilt lorchen

[Marianne G.]

I am lucky enough to have an embroidery machine so I digitise motifs and embroider them. I have also in the past made table mats from tea towels and my girls made bags like Becky when they first started to make sewn gifts for grandparents. You get some lovely tea towels in Holland - the Dutch are so talented when it comes to art and craft. Their craft shops are like sweet shops.
Marianne

[Norma H.]

Absolutly nothin' !!! :P But this little quilt is just super, Lorchen !!

How fun, this was my instant reaction to your question, Lorchen, but Marilyn did it for me :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Pam D.]

I dry dishes with them, Lorchen :-( You are one very creative lady! I can understand wanting a room where kids can calm down, but it sounds more like a large prison cell.

[Pam D.]

I don't have any so I am not sure what I would do with one. If they had fantastic needlework on them, I would just enjoy them. Great idea Lorchen!

[Susan B.]

I but it sounds more like a large prison cell.

Some kids need a place without a lot of visual and auditory stimulation so they can calm down. It's not prison, it's helping them.

[Deborah W.]

Great quilt Lorchen. I dry dishes (well actually I don't)! Actually about the only time my tea towels get used is if I have the family in for a meal and the sink is too full to let the dishes drip dry or if we are making bread and I need to cover the pans of dough to get them to rise! Love your idea though.

[Lois B.]

Lorchen, My mother was very creative with her tea towels. She removed a few cross grain threads and used the open strands to create designs and she called it hem stitching. She taught me how to do hemstitching. After she passed away I found yards and yards of her beautiful linen toweling waiting to be made into towels. I used some of it to make curtains for my kitchen windows. Actually, they are Roman Shades not curtains. I have been wanting to post this ever since you asked this question. However, every time I went to take the picture the sun was shinning directly on the window and I could not get a good photo. These photos are not the best but I think you'll get the idea.

[E.M. T.]

Beautiful...doubt you'd find that toweling today !

[Hannelore N.]

Lois, thank you soooo much for the pictures of your wonderful blinds. My grandmother taught me how to do 'Hohlsaum' (hollow hem). I haven't done any for years, but always loved the technique. Most of my grandmother's bedlinen had some of that embroidery on it, especially the pillow cases. Unfortunately I did not manage to rescue any of it. By the time my grandmother died, my mother didn't want any of the linen. She only wanted household textiles that were easy to wash and didn't need starching or ironing. I did manage to sneakily safe some smaller pieces of my grandmother's work, and I treasure them.

[Charae H.]

Wow, Lois! What a treasure to be able to see every day. Your mother did beautiful work!

[Norma H.]

Looks really good, Lois. I learned these techniques as a child but I am not sure I could do it today.

[Norma H.]

Lorchen, My mother was very creative with her tea towels. She removed a few cross grain threads and used the open strands to create designs and she called it hem stitching. She taught me how to do hemstitching. After she passed away I found yards and yards of her beautiful linen toweling waiting to be made into towels. I used some of it to make curtains for my kitchen windows. Actually, they are Roman Shades not curtains. I have been wanting to post this ever since you asked this question. However, every time I went to take the picture the sun was shinning directly on the window and I could not get a good photo. These photos are not the best but I think you'll get the idea.

Hi Lois,

I wanted to get some toweling to make similar roman shades for my non-standard sized tall narrow laundry room window, but I could never find any toweling in the right blue color. Yours are beautiful and I'm so jealous!