We have some well and truly pre-loved towels in this place. My beloved calculates that these are close to 30 years old.
I regard them as quick drying, even if they are fraying at the edges! I use them at the beach, or at exercise group. Other people pull out a plastic yoga mat and I pull out one of these. This winter, they were thinner than previously and when it was wet, other women in the group felt sorry for me. One offered me a spare yoga mat. I just don’t fancy it, though I am grateful for her generosity. The more times I think ‘plastic is forever’ the less I want unnecessary plastic in my life, on top of all the plastic there already is and has been.
I decided to just stitch the two thinnest towels together and bind the edges to deal with the fraying. I chose a nice thin fabric for the binding. I think I made a shirt out of this… over twenty years ago… but there was enough left for binding. So I practised up my binding skills.
Stitched on the first side…
And machine stitched the second edge down. So… it will dry more slowly, but hopefully everyone can relax about my yoga mat now!
Waste not, want not…I swear you are the ONE 🙂 Good for you.
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Thanks, Susan!
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that is wonderful. now I feel guilty about binning my huge Afghan kelim yesterday, all mothy where it had been under the big bed and on the other side, the desk … could have saved the middle, but too repulsed by the beastly mothiness disaster to be honest …. by the way I have a soft yoga mat made of latex, I agree, nasty plastic not nice ….
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Some things do have to be farewell-ed. However regretfully. I am so sorry to hear of the moths. That is an awful thing to deal with!
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I use old towels for lots of things but you have made them beautiful! I love the description of an ageing bald towel as “quick drying”! You must have good storage options tho’, to keep them for thirty years?
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But they are quick drying! Because, as you quite rightly say, they are bald! I think we have bought only two beach towels since these ones, so we are fine for shelf space…
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I also love my old towels and dislike plastic yoga mats, so I’m inspired to see this! However, I imagine a towel could be a bit slippy on a wooden floor. Thoughts? Perhaps a few stripes of paint-on latex?
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Maybe! Those non slip mats can be cut up and sewn on, too? Or perhaps this isn’t the solution for you 🙂
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Another great repurposed project. I too keep towels till they have holes. I use a yoga mat that I now realise is almost 20 years only, one of the plastic ones. One day it may need replacing… But there are always towels!
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Three cheers for towels! I had a period when I collected all the waste water from the kitchen in buckets to haul to the garden and had constant towel floor mats… I use them in dyeing… covering steering wheels so they can be touched in summer when you get into the car… picnic rugs… 20 years is a great lifetime for any yoga mat–further evidence we may be siblings separated at birth 🙂
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