Nope, not me.  Not going to throw in the towel.  But I do have a lot of towels to throw!   Hahahahaha

I got my last bunch of towels about 6 or 8 years ago.  These are the towels I originally got  just for dyeing — clean-up and mopping because dyeing yarns is a very wet business, at least the way I do it, one or two skeins at a time on a flat open counter.  And over the years, these towels have become dye-stained and a few were starting to fray.  I do confess to also using them as regular kitchen towels since I refuse to throw money at paper towels.  Near as I can tell it is less expensive to bleach and wash a load of towels each week than to keep buying more single-use paper products.  These are normally sold as restaurant/bar/pub towels for wiping counters and tables, so designed for regular heavy use.

While I use colors all over the spectrum, it seems that my Jacquard “Fire Red” dye is the most difficult to get out.  It really is a permanent dye, even on cotton.  🙂

After washing, they live neatly stacked on my rolling dye-work cart, which I can easily move over to my working space.  Oh, and after washing, the clean ones go to the bottom of the stack to ensure relatively even wear and tear on the lot of them.

For what I do and how I do it, given the space in which I have to work, this set-up works superbly. On reflection, of course, I’m not sure if the space is what I needed, or perhaps I developed what I do in order to fit the space available.  It’s been 16+ years and it is what I am accustomed to, so at this point I don’t know and don’t care which came first.  It all just works for me.  The cart itself is lower than my kitchen counter, but the serrated lip/tear strip of the plastic wrap is the same height as the counter, so it is super easy to pull out what I need and tear it off.

So anyway, since I noticed more of my towels wearing thin and the whole lot becoming evenly pink-ish, I decided it was time to replace the lot.  Sadly, this original brand of towel is no longer available so I had to go with something a little bit smaller to replenish the supply.  If the label is to be believed, there should be 120 fresh new towels to start the new year!  Just for logistics, I may have to split the pile just to avoid having the whole stack tumble over every time I work. 🙂

Before I could stack them up, they all had to be washed, since they came compressed from the mill that made them.   I was smart to wash them in 3 loads — the volume of lint in the dryer lint trap after each load was phenomenal!

So anyway, I have new towels, and two new rolls of plastic wrap close at hand, so I think I am ready for new year.  🙂

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