8 ways to use a tea towel (aside from drying dishes)

Sometimes people ask us “What is a tea towel for?” or “How do I use a tea towel?”

Well, the obvious answer is that it’s made for drying the dishes, but actually, a tea towel can do lots of other things too. Yes, they can multitask. Heck, they are the masters of multi-teatowel-tasking!

We’ve come up with a bunch of jolly good ideas for what else to do with your tea towels:

Multi-teatowel-tasking #1: A makeshift apron

Forgot your apron? No problem if there’s a tea towel around. We chose the SunnySide tea towel in persimmon, and used a belt to tie it around the waist.

Who says a makeshift apron isn’t as good as a real one? Not us.

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Multi-teatowel-tasking #2:  Frame it!

We took our Stig tea towel , folded it over at the back to fit a readymade frame that we found at Country Road. The great thing about this bit of teatoweltasking is that you can put the tea towel to use once you don’t want to have it in a frame any more.

Funnily enough, the Stig tea towel design started out as a piece of papercut artwork, made to be framed! Read about that here.

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Multi-teatowel-tasking #3:  Make a wallhanging

Instead of framing it, you can hang your tea towel on the wall as a wallhanging. All you need is a couple of wooden dowels and a sewing machine.

Take a look at how we turned our EYECHART tea towel into a wallchart, so if you want to do the same, take a look at our step-by-step tutorial

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Multi-teatowel-tasking #4: Drip drying glasses

Of course you use tea towels to dry the dishes, but you can also use one just to let them drip dry. The 100% cotton hopsack of our tea towels is very absorbant, and perfect for the job.

We like to fold a tea towel in half and place it on a matching Skinny laMinx tray to create a soft (and pretty) landing for our favourite glasses.

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Multi-teatowel-tasking #5: A salad spinner

When you’ve just given your garden-fresh leaves a wash and need to dry them off, a tea towel is your friend. Roll the leaves up in the tea towel, pinch the corners, and then whirl it around your head like a kind of mad textile salad-spinner. Your leaves will be dry, yet dewy, and you’ll have given your family a good chance to laugh at your antics.

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Multi-teatowel-tasking #6: Catch the drips

Someone’s given you flowers? Oh, you bought them for yourself (cos you’re worth it)? Either way, you should trim the ends before putting them in a vase. Catch the drips, and the cut ends too, by putting your bunch on a beautiful tea towel like our Summer Weeds design, inspired by the joy of flowers growing wild.

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Multi-teatowel-tasking #7: Wrangle a hot pot

Of course, ideally, you have a Skinny laMinx oven mitt nearby, but when a hot pot needs wrangling in a pinch, a tea towel do the trick. Just make sure you fold it two or three times to get maximum heat protection!

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Multi-teatowel-tasking #7: Giftwrap Furoshiki style

Wrap it! The Japanese art of furoshiki (wrapping objects in fabric) is a perfect opportunity to not only give two gifts simultaneously, but also to get people to marvel at your ingenuity and dexterity.

Follow our step-by-step furoshiki tutorial to learn how to wrap your gifts in our Flower Ring tea towel (or any other Skinny laMinx tea towel. of course!)

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Are you convinced that tea towels can do a lot more than dry dishes?

Find all the Skinny laMinx tea towels you ever dreamed of for sale in our online shop, just waiting for you to put them to good use!