Pretty and useful things

When I was doing demonstration weaving the weekend before last, many people were curious as to what I was weaving. The answer was dishtowels that were going to be sold at Fine Line. More than a few times, certainly enough that I started to become aware of it, the reply to my answer was, "Oh, that's too pretty! I could never use it as a dishtowel!!" 

After multiple occurrences of this particular conversation, it started to rankle a bit. Because the truth is, the yarn for the loom was all bits of leftovers. There really wasn't anything precious about it. It was also 100% cotton, which is also a pretty ubiquitous fiber. Even me pointing this out and adding that handwoven cotton towels last a very long time and actually dry things, most of the commenters still insisted they were too pretty to use. 

Why don't we allow ourselves to use beautiful things for utilitarian tasks? It seems that adding beauty to your life, even for such a pedestrian task as drying dishes, would be beneficial. Dishtowels get used all the time, so you would be able to appreciate the pretty thing that much more often. Certainly far more often than if you stuck it in a drawer and only brought it out on special occasions. But would you remember to? And how would you decide the occasion was special enough? 

Once again, I urge you to use the beautiful things you have. They were made for a purpose and enjoying them means they need to come out of the cupboard or drawer or closet. There are no guarantees in life, enjoy their beauty now. And if something happens to them and they get ruined or broken, you at least appreciated them while you had them. Having beautiful items that stay locked away and never used for fear of damage seems the greater tragedy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Making bias tape... otherwise known as the Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway

Image
( Sorry, the contest is now closed .... though you're welcome to leave a comment if you like.) [This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but is here solely to give Blogger a different photo to post in the thumbnail.] It's Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway time again.  I love bias tape.  It is so useful and so easy to use... finishing edges ... finishing seams ...  And while the pre-packaged stuff has it's place and I use it often, I really like to have patterned bias tape as well.  Enter one of my favorite little tools: the bias tape maker.  This one make 3/4 inch bias tape and I will be giving one away at the end of this post.  But first, I thought some of you might like to see what it does if you've never used one before. I don't have a rotary cutter, nice cutting mats, or even a proper cutting table (I cut-out things on my floor), so if I can do this, so can you.  Here is my admittedly quirky method. Step 1:  Lay out the fabric an...
Read more

Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway

Image
Sew, Mama, Sew! is hosting another giveaway day , the day where many bloggers giveaway things they have made or supplies to make things or both.  It is great fun to visit a lot of blogs and try to win cool stuff.  So fun that I thought I would participate this year. I had great hopes of making a set of coordinating mother/daughter aprons.  But reality reared its ugly head and I came to terms with the fact that my time is not limitless.Instead of aprons,  I must continue to spend quality time with yards and yards of red plaid flannel.  What am I making?  Well, as I tell my children, it is the season not to ask questions... I will be able to let you know sometime after the 25th. Instead of making something, I went to my favorite thrift store and found some supplies in the form of sheets and pillowcases (some of my favorite raw material).  I'm giving away three pillowcases and one twin flat sheet. I decided to go with bright, springy colors...
Read more

The mystery of the missing soap

You all know that I am an avid reader of mysteries, but sometimes we have our own real life mysteries here as well. Take the case of the missing soap. One of our bathrooms upstairs is the children's bathrooms, whose sink is lower than other sinks upstairs. Now, since it is the children's bathroom, it is not always pristine and things cannot always be found when they are needed. Are we the only house where things just randomly vanish, never to be seen again? This happens fairly frequently. Often the items are too big to have been taken by Borrowers , but every human in the house disavows any knowledge of the missing item. As far as they are concerned, they never even knew said item existed, so how could they have taken it? Often Mr. Nobody gets the blame and we move one, the item sometimes resurfacing at a later date and sometimes not. Early last week, when the little girls went upstairs to get ready for bed and found an entire bar of soap missing, it was classed as one of ...
Read more