old tea towels and linen cloths

It's one of those emerging collections. I noticed that I've stopped picking up Zik plates (I've got so many...) but lately nice old linen towels or kitchen cloths started to sneak into my thrifting basket more and more often.

This new collection is fairly quick to build, and it certainly doesn't break the bank. The tea towels tend to be cheap and crop up often in the thrifts, which is already two things in common with the Zik plates. For yet another, the good old tea towels get to be just as useful in the kitchen.

 

I try not to use them too heavily though, they are so pretty! 

Certain ones - like the plain cloth with the red edges - look more like sauna cloths. These look lovely in a freshly laundered, neatly folded pile but I'm not sure I'll be putting them to use for us. In the case of sauna things it's best to have your very own.

Sometimes I wish I was a stylist of some sort, it'd be nice to use them in pictures rather than just piling them high in cupboards - I'd love to photograph these old things with a good camera to examine their beauty properly.

I almost wrote it down but it wouldn't be entirely true: they don't make tea towels like these any more - in fact they do. Yet I'm so certain I'd never use the expensive gorgeous ones in our messy kitchen. So let me have an armful of old ones for the same cost and I won't cry if I ruin them. I love their designs though, so maybe I'd cry a little...

Look at these two chunky linen twill cloths below - they look like they had a hardworking life, but not a stain on them... I admire people who can look after their kitchen textiles in such preservative ways! One day I'd love to be able to move into an old cottage flanked by a lake in the middle of the forest, to match these two rustic towels...