Blogging is My Reward

Because I make myself finish up everything on my to do list before I get to blog, you might say Blogging is My Reward (to myself).

Blogging also helped me get through a Valentines' Day that was a little bleak. There are a few sad things going on (as happens from time to time).

Leave it to a fellow blogger to cheer me up. Diane sent word that she had posted a picture of an English quilt from her collection.  She wrote: "Since we share a passion for antique quilts, I thought you might be interested." Check out the Feb. 10 entry - I love her antique red English log cabin quilt and I'm sure you will too. Best of all I fell in love with the little heart on it that shows a date. I made a few copies of it (above) for my favorite Valentines. Both fabrics used are from thrift shop shirts. Ah! Thanks, Diane.

Another cheerful discovery is the book Thrift to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s-1950s by Rosemary McLeod, a New Zealand journalist. Kathe Dougherty discovered it during her recent travels down under. McLeod a kindred spirit for us. She collects textiles of the everyday variety and has great respect for the people  who created them. Her first chapter explains: "I did not deliberately set out to become a collector of these things, but when I was a child I did dream of becoming an archaeologist....it's taken me years to realize this is what I effectively became, through collecting, without realizing it. ...Digging for the past is what I've done in junk shops as a break from that work (she is a journalist), and the themes I've seen emerging from the objects I've discovered have been a way of understanding the past through physical evidence."

It's a wonderful book.