Back in the old days, many Mothers left some things on the table for the next meal. Maybe it was cold potatoes or bread. The family snacked on things like this before the next meal, if they were hungry. And some Mothers would make pretty coverings to put over their plate of bread (or maybe a dish of raw fruit or the butter) on the table to keep the flies away. Sometimes the Mothers would crochet a special covering for the bread, for instance. And I have, at times, found a pretty piece of material and hemmed it up to use, just special, to cover my bread as it is rising.
At a sale lately, I found my best buy. I found this group of six cloth napkins, and they have the most wonderful old fashoned pictures on them -- a woman making bread and other old time ads. The cloth is brown and has red in it. They are hand-made, simply. I could tell an old time housewife just loved the material and made napkins out of them. I put one on my plastic table cloth in the middle? And, on this cloth, I have my kerosene lamp and an old brown mug with spoons in it. I collect sugar bowls and creamers and have a nice collection, too.
But, Ladies, if you find a material that you like? Just make some coverings to spruce up your kitchen. You don't have to make a fancy-sewn toaster cover. Just make the material square and hem it up ... hand sew it and put it over your toaster.
I put different cloths on my toaster every day. My friend JillC made a precious quilt covering for me. It is about 2 ft square? And I use this daily for just this and that..I have it on my toaster now. One day, I used it to cover some of my homemade sliced bread on the table. I had put plastic wrap on it first, but I love the look of the old time coverings on my table.
Actually, before plastic wrap and wax paper, the mothers wrapped food in paper or cloth. They would wrap their pies and cakes in a white tea towel. The tea towels were very precious to these mothers. They weren't just towels and, often, the Mothers would embroider on them or crochet around the outside of the hem. They would tat around the outside and then crochet. I have an old dish rag that my grandmother crocheted around the outside. It was a cheap dish rag to start with. But the old time Mothers did stuff like that.
And their tables had to be set just so. My mother says that my grandmother got every dish in her cupboard out to make a meal. The old time housewives always put homemade canned pickles on the table for every meal except breakfast. Also jams and jellies and syrups. Then, always, a plate of homemade bread or biscuits to acompany the rest of a delicious meal. To my grandmother, boiled potatoes on the table was a staple like bread. Every meal that Gram ever cooked started out with boiled potatoes. Then she put on the meat, etc. But my own Mom says that if the children were hungry before a meal, they ate cold potatoes.
I know one day, as my mom was here visiting, I wiped something up with a nice white embroidered tea towel. My Mom about croaked. She said, "Connie, why did you use your nice dish towel to clean up that mess?" Well, I didn't understand how precious these dish towels were to the old time mothers. They were works of art and were passed down to each daughter. The Mothers' coverings were precious to them. They didn't allow them to become stained.
Most mothers had a good store of old rags that they used for cleaning., and it is nice to have a drawer full of rags that you don't care if they get stained. Often, when the children and I were cutting up old clothes and making things, I would have a pile just for rags. Old cotton T-Shirts are great to dust and clean with. I would cut them so they would lay flat, and I cut the arms off. Otherwise, they get back in the wash and the kids wear them when company comes. Good housewives need a good store of old rags to clean with.
