Tea towels: To use or not to use?

Last week while reading the comments on Linda's blog, I learned that she and Steph deal with one of the same questions I do: Do you use those pretty tea towels or not? I've ruined a few by mopping up spaghetti sauce and kitchen spills, so I began storing my "good" tea towels and using only the ones I don't mind soiling. Then I read "The Kitchen Linens Book" by EllynAnne Geisel last week, and she had a solution to this problem which I have already put into use. "Any towel that's embellished -- embroidered, or edged, or painted -- I'll put out in the powder room, where I can be fairly certain they'll be spared of hands greasy from food prep or dirty from tinkering with the mower," she says. So these two tea towels don't necessarily match this corner of my yellow bathroom next to the linen closet, but I like the idea of displaying them on this dear lady, a towel butler(ette) that was a Christmas gift from my mom.

The cross-stitch tea towel was actually a gift from my friend Ann, who had recently acquired one of those fancy embroidery sewing machines which does about 5,000 stitches and even cooks supper for you. Since not all of us were blessed with husbands who know how to cross-stitch, like ParTea Lady, I was quite happy to receive this tea towel!


This pink towel was a recent find at an online boutique called Grandma G's. She has gorgeous vintage linens, impeccable customer service, and I was floored at all the "gifts with purchase" that arrived with my dinky little order of a single tea towel. She sent ...

... the carefully packaged tea towel tied with pink ribbon I have tucked away for a future craft ...


... an egg-shaped goodie bag containing Hershey's kisses and a bookmark and some TEA ...

... and finally, she included a little quilted coaster/mug mat made out of beautiful floral fabric! I'm not sure she made anything off my purchase, but I certainly enjoyed shopping with her!