Winter is coming faster than one thinks in Wisconsin, despite the beautiful current weather conditions. Before this year, when I got a cold, I used to blow my nose in disposable tissues and throw them away. This was the typical example of how I had accepted a wasteful action as part of my daily routine without questioning it for years. However, one day I thought about a handkerchief I had as a little girl. It was full of colors, and a little frayed on the edge. It offered great comfort when I had a runny nose. Upon wondering what happened to it, then I asked myself when I stopped using it, and finally why I wasn’t still using cloth handkerchiefs. The idea came to me to turn old kitchen towels, themselves frayed on the edges with holes here and there, into handkerchief.

The problem is that I can’t sew. Fortunately I have a friend who can. She did a great job and told me it wasn’t very hard. Because the towels were going to be tossed if not converted, it didn’t matter if the sewing was perfect, so she had fun trying different things. Here is one of the pictures she took when she was done.

Photo and sewing by Sally M.