Friday 6 May 2011

Tea Towels of Scotland

Scottish Seabird Centre, North Berwick
Today I share with you some tea towels in memory of my mother in law who died this time last year. She is fondly remembered in many ways, but so often with tea towels she loved so much.

Many of these tea towels are from my mother in law.  Not all.  Some bought by us.  Some sent by my sister in law HH.  All used and loved.  Wish my photography did them justice. 

Battle of Britain, from the War Museum at Edinburgh Castle
Edradour Distillery, Pitlochry, Scotland
A Celtic Blessing
The Crown Jewels, Scotland
A celebration of the Scots Language
Scottish Borders
The Lady, English weekly magazine
Christmas
Peebles
My niece's childcare centre
For fellow tea towel enthusiasts, I've found a few interesting links for tea towels lately.  The Independent newspaper had an article on the British institution of the tea towelMangocheeks had a recommendation for buying tea towels online and I found lots of interesting tea towels at Anthologie thanks to a link from Lucy.  I was also sent a link for a designer tea towel site that I would love to buy from - www.todryfor.com.  You can see more of my collection on this tea towel post.

14 comments:

  1. I love these! I've never been to Scotland, but I want to go some day (when my financial conditions are nicer), and my mom (who's very interest in history and family genealogy) has found out that we have Scottish ancestors.

    My grnadmom had a lot of kitchen towels with motives printed on them, and my favorite one was the one with the apple strudel recipe on it. It teared this year because it was so old and so used, and it made me very sad because I loved it so much. (I still have it and treasure it, although it has a very big hole in the middle now, but I just couldn't throw it away.)

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  2. Oh how lovely Johanna. A perfect tribute to your mother-in-law.

    If I had to choose a favorite (and please don't make me:) I think it would be, A celebration of the Scots Language.

    Thank you so much for sharing...

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  3. Your thoughts in displaying her beloved tea towels would have made her proud. One of the reasons I started my blog was to also document the beautiful recipes of my grandmother who passed away in December 2007. It is a great legacy to share the love of food.

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  4. What a lovely tribute, Johanna! I particularly love the language one :)

    My housemate has recently decided to start collecting teatowels - I should send her this link!

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  5. Hey, I had no idea you were a fellow tea towel enthusiast! I collect souvenir tea towels (and use them).

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  6. Thanks for sharing your tea towels. I have stacks of them just sitting unloved and unused in my cupboard - and I bought them! Love your Crown Jewels and Lady tea towels especially. Maybe I will have to get mine out and do a post on them so that they get some sunlight.

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  7. Some of those look pretty familiar to me lol. It shouldn't come as a shock to me to see that most of my tea towels are Aussie based ;0)

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  8. Beautiful collection Johanna. I adore tea towels and have a drawer full of them along with aprons! :)

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  9. Thanks Kath - hope you get to scotland one day - it is a beautiful place - and that is great you have saved your grandmother's tea towels - my mother in law said she once had a beatles tea towel that fell apart - imagine how valuable that would be now

    Thanks Louise - there is a lot of entertainment in the scots language tea towel - glad you liked it - I worried if people could read it in the photo - my favourite saying is awa and bile yer head (away and boil your head) - such a charming insult!

    Thanks chopin and mysaucepan - I think preserving and sharing our heritage is one of the great aspects of blogs - glad you have a space for your grandmother's recipes

    Thanks Hannah - how interesting that your housemate is collecting tea towels - it took me a long time to appreciate tea towels - I thought they were boring until I lived with an English housemate whose parents sent him great tourist tea towels

    Thanks Kathleen - how funny that you collect tea towels too - they are a great practical thing to collect

    Thanks Cakelaw - I have been known to take tea towels out of circulation - especially in a share house where my favourite got really grotty and I was most displeased - would be lovely to see a post on your tea towels - by the way I think the Lady tea towel was the last my mother in law sent us

    Thanks Chele - there are lots of great aussie tea towels - last time we saw one while out and about, we were sad not to be able to send it to my mother in law - we bought her lots of aussie tea towels because she loved them so much

    Thanks Lorraine - would love to see your tea towels (maybe a theme for a post) and aprons - I don't collect aprons as I don't use them very much - esp compared to tea towels. But Sylvia got grubby baking with me today so I thought aprons might be seen more in our kitchen soon.

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  10. AMAZING!! I love tea towels!

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  11. Thank you so much for sharing and writing this post. This is a heartfelt and beautiful tribute to your mother in law. I think its heart warming the ways we remember those who have left us through things rather than photographs. x

    PS I have two of those tea towels - the Seabird Life and the Scots language :) And thank you so much for the kind link.

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  13. I was just about to refer you to Mangocheeks link Johanna, but you got there before me. Nice collection. I was laughing at the one in Scots. I can truly say I haven't used many of those terms. I might tell someone to "haud their wheest", but probably more likely, "wheest up" and the only other one is "Skinny Malinky", which is followed up by "Big Banana Feet". We used to put that in paper fortune tellers when we made them, as an insult. Hehe :) Did you ever make the paper fortune tellers?

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  14. What lovely tea towels. You've actually inspired me to pick up random tea towels when we're traveling. :)

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