Flour Sack Towels

 

Year 8-Day 300: Today, I am grateful for flour sack towels. 

I grew up with "flour sack towels". As a child, I think some of our flour sack towels were truly from the era when flour was purchased in sacks. 

A flour/feed sack was usually made of cheap cotton. It was easy to recycle and upcycle. Flour and feed were essential. The fabric sacks were recycled into clothing, aprons and household linens back in the early days on the prairie. Free cloth was never wasted. 

                                                             
One of my favorite items to include in a bridal shower gift are good, old fashioned flour sack towels. Some call them bar rags. They don't leave lint on glasses. They are kitchen essentials for the good crystal glasses (the ones that don't go in the dishwasher). They are practical and don't take up much room in the drawer. 

Lulu's boutique has the cutest flour sack towels in our little village of Morton. (Check them out on Main Street.) They are almost too cute to use, but once you put them to work, you will remember why they were a favorite in grandma's kitchen. 

Simple items that get the job done are practical and help us be productive. Humble items that get the job done. 

In Biblical times, sackcloth was used to make garments for times of repentance and mourning. They were humble garments, itchy and uncomfortable. Sin should be itchy and uncomfortable. Mourning causes great discomfort, too. 

"When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them." -Psalm 69:10-11

They wore sackcloth intentionally to signify the humbling of their hearts and their shame. It was not the soft fabric of our flour sack towels, although both were used to hold grain and feed. 

I am grateful that the fabric of "modern" times is softer. 

Today, I am grateful for flour sack towels.