Petals, Patchwork, & An Autumn Ritual

Our local grocery had these beautiful wine-colored hydrangea plants in the floral department yesterday. I am way more apt to use this deep color for fall than the more common fiery hues. I also love that a plant will last so much longer than cut blooms!

I thought right away of the new Wolff pot that we brought home from Connecticut last summer. I have just dropped the hydrangea in like a cachepot. They will get moved around as long as they last, but for now they cheer up this corner by the reading chair.

Read more about these pots here and here.

I also look for ways to use my transferware around the house for fall. A pretty plate will serve as a temporary saucer since the pot has a drainage hole and needs one.

Another "fall" thing that I bring out is this old patchwork quilt that I stumbled across a few years ago at a fleamarket. It was in one of those "man" booths with old tools and metal and wood and such. It was filthy and smelled of oil. It was coming apart at one end and was as brittle as old paper in places. I nearly came to my senses and left it there! It really was worth no more than the ten dollars that I paid for it. Not even suitable for a remake into something. So why did I buy it, you might ask?

The fabrics are very old. Perhaps more than a hundred years. I knew that they probably began as clothing of some sort, or pieces left over from sewing. I knew that each stitch was made by a skilled hand from long ago, and it felt to me like a voice was speaking out from the past.

The worn quilt is merely a relic now. Of use for hardly a thing. But I soaked it gently and long when I brought it home, and dried it carefully on the lawn way from the sun, as if fading one more shade would make the slightest difference. Some of the cotton batting was lost in the process from the one badly decaying end. Each time I handle it even now a few more tears in the cloth appear. 

The reverse is done up in this wonderful antique plaid that speaks clearly of an old homestead to me.

And I thought that you might enjoy seeing the variety of the old prints close up. . . .

It is a homey and handsome puzzle-stitched beauty. And I still enjoy the exercise of wonder each time I draw it from the closet where it takes up precious space. How did it ever come to be jumbled up among the vintage rakes and cans of some gritty garage world in the first place? 

Many stains from its checkered past remain. But the old patchwork is as fresh and sweet as modern chemistry will allow. The quilt has earned its quiet nest away from dust and too much light. Bundled up in its cover, I like to imagine that it might even be happy to be lifted up and admired once in an autumn or two. But it still keeps it secrets tucked deep inside like so many tufts of pillowed cotton. And so it will remain. Alongside the mystery of that ten dollar question. . . . 

More views of this quilt and others can be found here.

And here.

Wishing you all the gifts of Autumn!

Jacqueline

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Cedar Hill Farmhouse~The Scoop