Best Xmas Gift - Dishtowels

I'm not joking. I am a cook, I use dishtowels every day. If you're in the kitchen while I'm cooking, and you can't find the towel, it's on my shoulder. They are the biggest multitasker in the kitchen. Drying hands, oven mitt, trivet, wiping up water, drying dishes, covering food just out of the oven, wrapping bread to keep them warm before dinner.

I like my linen ones, but they are not very absorptive. And I always thought of dishtowels as practical and basic, either white or with misc. unmemorable designs.

I was helping a friend do her holiday baking last week and found I was admiring all the deep rich colors of her dishtowels. Her cousins run Earth Guild which is a crafters guild in North Carolina. They don't sell the towels, (though they teach classes) they only weave them for family as gifts.

My xmas gift was a couple towels from them. I spent 30 minutes trying to decide on 2 of the 10 she had. Every one of them was handwoven cotton in rich wonderful colors They are soft and supple and feel like dishtowels that have been broken in after years of use.

If I ever go to NC, I am so taking a class, and all I'm gonna make are dishtowels. They make their own line of hand dyed cotton yarn called Dragon Tales. Which makes me like them even more.