Saturday, as The Husband and I were driving home from the bank, we happened upon a yard sale (and by "happened upon," I mean we were driving along when I spotted these quilts and yelled "Quiltsatayardsale, quiltsatayardsale, PULLOVERPULLOVER!).
Each of them was $45, and as soon as the word "fortyfive" left the lady's mouth, I remembered that I was carrying a $50 bill with me... I was excited. SO excited. I was going to buy a vintage quilt! YESSSSS! I looked at each of the quilts. They were deliciously old, unevenly bleached by the sun, tattered, stained, and one of them even sported a rip. I loved them, especially this one:
But as I was mentally preparing to barter for this quilt, I suddenly realized that I couldn't go through with it. I thought I'd hang the quilt on the wall in my studio, but then I'd have to look at it every day, and frankly, as much as I loved those quilts, they depressed me. It seemed fundamentally wrong to me that these well-loved quilts should be sold to random people on a sunny Saturday, forever separating them from the family that ought to be cherishing them and handing them down to the next gereation.
And so I chickened out. And the rest of my sunny Saturday had a sad aftertaste. I'm not cut out for antiquing, I suppose. I can't shake the feeling of "that's not mine." Weird, huh?
6 comments:
I can NOT believe you passed that up. I would look at it this way, YOU would be rescuing the quilt and appreciating it!!!! You would have saved it from being bought by someone who would NOT appreciate it!!
I can't believe you passed that up :) :) :)
I know what you mean. You really wanted the lady to keep them. To treasure them and hand them down to her grandkids. There's a story behind those bits of fabric and to pass the quilt on without the story is kind of sad.
Next time this happens, buy one for me :) I'll totally pay you for it. I like the bowtie one ;)
What made it even worse is that I overheard one of the garage sellers tell a customer "Yes, we sent my aunt away. She wouldn't let us sell anything!"
In my mind, even though I didn't save the poor quilts from the evil family heirloom sellers, I may have left them there for the original owner to love. Right?
So many pretty quilts.
It is sad to see family heirlooms sold. My husband's great aunt just had a yard sale and sold some of her mother's stuff. I was very saddened to learn that she had done that. I was a little too late to the yard sale and only got a few things. (And I wonder what I missed!)
They are beautiful none the less.
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