Apartment Therapy The Kitchn | The IKEA Kitchen: TEKLA Towels (and Napkins)

The IKEA Kitchen: TEKLA Towels (and Napkins)

Like we said the other day, IKEA is best used in moderation. But there are some good buys there and we have a few favorites that have done very well for us. Here's another IKEA pick: the all-cotton TEKLA towel! Now, these don't actually come in napkin form, but...

...we bought an extra dozen to use as folded cloth napkins for more informal dinner parties! We love their delicate yet strong cotton fabric, and the French-inspired red stripe. We find that the thin fabric doesn't wrinkle as badly as our heavier-weight fabric napkins.

We have over two dozen of these very inexpensive towels. We do think that most kitchen towels should be inexpensive; we have to replace ours regularly. They get burnt, soiled, stained, and basically shredded. It's nice that we can cheaply replace them for less than $0.50 apiece.

• TEKLA dishtowel, $0.49 at IKEA. Not available online.

Comments (9)

I have the blue equivalents to these! *love* them. I probably have two dozen of them at this point, as I've tried to replace paper towels with cloth ones.

posted by laetitiae on September 5th 2008 at 10:11am
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these are on my list for my ikea trip next week :)

posted by closertotheocean on September 5th 2008 at 10:32am
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I have these and love them, but mine are all stained now- I need more!

posted by spotonmeg on September 5th 2008 at 5:35pm
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Also - the ovenmit and oversized potholder set is great. I can't remember the name, but check them out.

posted by matmccoy on September 8th 2008 at 5:36am
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thank you for this recommendation! I have some pretty but useless dish towels from Crate & Barrel. They don't absorb anything! If they can't absorb liquid, what are they for?

posted by designmuse on September 8th 2008 at 12:57pm
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these towels are also great for printing and customizing. I use linoblocks (or sometimes speedyblocks) and jacquard textile paint and have had very good results!

posted by kodaly on April 13th 2009 at 10:22am
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I have plenty of these. When they are too bad-looking for the kitchen, I give them a second life as cleaning rags.

posted by xieta on April 23rd 2009 at 2:19am
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I also have lots of these in blue and red, they require a wash or 2 to be absorbent but are the best freakin dish towel and at the price you can replace when they wear out...I use them for everything...

I also do not use paper towels anymore either and with a little oxy clean and a good scrub the stains come right out...

posted by elizabo on June 8th 2009 at 4:33pm
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OH, I agree...Ikea towels are the BOMB! ;-)

I have the ELLY style, and get so many uses out of these dish towels. Great scrubbing towels for dog stains & "Nature's Miracle."

I've bleached these towels numerous times--it just lightens them a bit, the blue's still there, not washed out whatsoever!

posted by Jannarama on June 14th 2009 at 10:43pm
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