handmade and in our home : 1

I've decided to do a series of posts called handmade and in our home. I want to do this to show you my love for handmade goods and the many talented artists that make them. This first post is very special to me because my nanny made these beautiful quilts. My father says he can remember her having friends over and working on these quilts for hours.

This one stays on my guest bed. I feel honored to have it in my home.
This is a picture of the lady whose hands made the quilts and the man who loved her. My grandparents Nanny and Paw Paw.


They do not make them any more,
For quilts are cheaper at the store
Than woman's labor, though a wife
Men think the cheapest thing in life.
But now and then a quilt is spread
Upon quaint old walnut bed,
A crazy quilt of those days
That I am old enough to praise.

Some woman sewed these points and squares
Into a pattern like life's cares.
Here is a velvet that was stong,
The poplin that she wore so long,
A fragment from her daughter's dress,
Like her, a vanished loveliness;
Old patches of such things as these,
Old garments and old memories.

And what is life? A crazy quilt;
Sorrow and joy, and grace and guilt,
With here and there a square of blue
For some old happiness we knew;
And so the hand of time will take
The fragments of our lives and make,
Out of life's remnants, as they fall,
A thing of beauty, after all.

Douglas Malloch