A little bit something else

I had the nicest day yesterday, popping out to visit a friend.  I could have sat all day visiting and knitting. I did some errands and then came home and knit some more on the orange scarf. BUT

An orange ribbed scarf is just an orange ribbed scarf and in order not to get sick of just an orange ribbed scarf, about supper time, I stopped to do a little something else.

It's been a while since I worked on it.  I most certainly did not get the project done for Christmas.  Maybe this year. 

I will have just enough thread to complete this first towel.  I have three planned for my practice set so I either have to change blues or I am going to have to go out and buy thread for the first time in decades.  Seriously, at least 20 years.  I used to stay current with all the DMC threads and had ready replacements when a colour was getting low.  

I haven't done this kind of outline work or any work on tea towels, much less flour sack tea towels, since I was a very small child.  They were great pieces to learn to embroider on. It was just the right kind of a challenge to learn the fine art of motor control and how to manage basic stitches.  

Tea towels have kind of become an afterthought in the modern kitchen, used to do any of several jobs, hot pad, pot holder, occasional wiper of dishes.  The days of needing a lot of dish towels are gone.  Gone too is the companionship that dishes used to mean. One to wash, one to dry.  My sisters and I used to have our best chats while doing them. We dawdled and dreamed and imagined.  We also used to fight so it isn't a complete loss.  I don't miss doing dishes by hand, not at all, but I have always missed the companionship of doing a simple basic chore with someone you liked spending time with.