Sunday, July 1, 2007

sad sale

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!).
yard sale quilts
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:
my favorite
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:

Karyn said...

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 :) :) :)

Anonymous said...

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.

Melissa Haworth said...

Next time this happens, buy one for me :) I'll totally pay you for it. I like the bowtie one ;)

Sonja said...

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?

lera said...

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!)

tweetey30 said...

They are beautiful none the less.