Prudent, Thrifty, or Insane?

Last night when I arrived home from running some errands, Granny laughingly told me how she had accidently spilled water all over the kitchen table. It was a very dramatic story of how she had to immediately throw the placemats in the dryer and clean up all of the water. (Which I think is the only washing they've had in 20 years). She then pointed out the paper towel hanging over the kitchen faucet. I thought that perhaps the faucet was leaking, but she informed me she was drying it to use again since it was a perfectly clean paper towel

This morning as I was cleaning up my breakfast mess (my plastic dish) I reached for the dish towel hanging near by and noticed it was kind of stiff. Upon further investigation I noticed that granny has sewn on an iron on patch. From what I can tell the patch is to keep some threads from unraveling. I suppose I should look up to her for her thriftiness, yet I'm not sure why she wouldn't just allow the slightly disfigured towel to become a rag, it's not like she doesn't have enough dishtowels, especially in light of the fact that we only dirty minimal dishes.

Pic 1. Towels used for drying our dish

Pic 2. Fancy towels for decoration

Pic 3. the over abundance of towels used for drying other dish