The quilt quest

For generations, quilts made by the Amish and others have been giving people immense pleasure, keeping them warm through bitter winters, causing disagreements among couples as to who is hogging more of the quilt on their side, etc. It is estimated that currently there are enough Amish quilts in existence for each non-Amish, 3.2-person household in America to have 11.6 of them. Swept up in nostalgia, the Hero and I, already in possession of one quilt, recently betook ourselves to Amish country to buy another one.


We may not seem to be likely quilt buyers. Amish quilts are generally considered to be full of high standards, whereas OUR standards for household furnishings are cheerfully low. People like us should not even be allowed to TOUCH a nice quilt. 


We learned more about quilts on this trip than I thought possible to know without actually quilting, mainly because the Hero prizes thorough research on potential purchases. So anyone who showed the slightest inclination to tell us about quilts was encouraged to do so. We learned about the flying geese pattern, which to me looked as if it could just as easily have been called the log cabin pattern, which could have been called the trip around the world pattern, which could have been called the sunshine and shadow pattern. Conversations generally proceeded thus:


Knowledgeable quilt person: Now THIS pattern is one of the oldest known in -- but you're probably not interested in all this detail.


Hero: Yes, please continue!


Me (in despair): Noooooooo!


This scene was repeated several times, followed by our examining each quilt in each store in minutest detail. Each one, in turn, was rejected -- mainly by me -- due to wrong color, wrong size, wrong pattern, wrong color in the wrong size in the wrong pattern, unfortunate resemblance to a quilt once owned by an unpleasant relative long deceased, etc.


Then, at a store that seemed to carry quilts only as an afterthought, I picked up a small beige quilt with red cabin-looking dwellings on it (although this was NOT, in some quirk of quilt naming, called the "log cabin" pattern).


"THIS is the one!" I said with satisfaction, holding it up.


The Hero stared in disbelief. "It's DIRTY!" he said.


"I don't think so," I said. "I think it's just dyed in tea to LOOK dirty. And old and heirloomish."


"It's made in INDIA!" he said, reading the tag.


I decided this would be our back-up choice, as we were nearing desperation and -- astonishingly -- running out of quilt shops. Then we happened upon a store's table display that included a burlap coffee bean bag. "Let's put that on the wall in place of a quilt," I suggested.


"Oh, how low we have sunk," he said. "From quilts to burlap bags."


We might be the owners of that bag now, if it weren't for the fact that we could not agree which side of the bag we would display. "Of course you're supposed to see THIS side," he said, indicating an aqua-colored horse and "Harar Horse" in large, bold letters.


"What is Harar Horse?" I said.


"Probably the bean company," he said.


"I don't know Harar Horse," I said. "Juan Valdez, I know. Not Harar Horse."


I wanted to display the other side, which had faded lettering that we could not make out. For all we knew, it might have said, "These beans were hand-picked by children under 12 who were tragically yanked out of school and who have no hope of a better future." But I thought the lettering was charming.


"You've got to be kidding," he said.


Clearly the burlap bag would not come home with us.


I then spotted an old door with peeling paint, and bold letters proclaiming that "This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad." It, too, I thought would be charming over the sofa.


Although the Hero admired the verse, "we're sinking lower," he moaned. "A faded burlap bag and a paint-flaking door."


The door, too, stayed where it was.


On our way out we noticed the same beige quilt with red cabin-looking dwellings that we had seen in the previous store, the quilt that was our backup, only this particular one looked like it had been used in battle in 1513, and perhaps several battles since.


"It's dirty," I said.


"Hallelujah!" the Hero said. And it stayed there, too.


Not surprisingly, the wall above our sofa is still bare, but maybe we can hang a fence on it. We have plenty of them in the garden.