So, Dear Readers, Madame L has been trying for weeks to get up the nerve to write about sequestration, a fancy word for "Congress now gives up its duty to govern and to budget responsibly and proceeds to cut the budgets of every important U.S. government agency while not forgetting to keep paying themselves and all their pals."
Madame L apparently just doesn't have as much nerve as she thought she did. But here's an equally puzzling word: Quilt.
Madame L thought of this word as she has been reading Aunt Ellen's recent posts about the various kinds of quilt blocks she's been making.
According to Wikipedia, "The word 'quilt' comes from the Latin culcita meaning a large stuffed sack, but it came into the English language from the French word cuilte."
A large stuffed sack, huh? Madame L remembers sleeping under a huge and heavy stack (not a sack) of beautiful old quilts at Grandma McBride's house in Pima, where it was so cold in the winter that you needed all those quilts PLUS a sister who shared the bed with you PLUS a brick Grandma had heated up in the wood stove and wrapped in a towel to put by your feet. (Yes, Madame L is old enough to have lived for some time in a really old house with a wood-burning stove! Amazing, isn't it, for one who looks so very young!)
Madame L also has fond memories of several quilts made for her by relatives through the years, starting with Great Aunt Minnie (for Madame L's wedding) , and of quilts she has made for other people. Lately, though, Madame L confesses that has found an easy way to piece together fleece fabric blocks to make blankets with fringe around the blocks and edges.
Still, though, some of Madame L's fondest memories are of sitting under quilts as they were being quilted in the living room of the home where she grew up; and, later, being one of the people sitting around the outside, working on the quilting herself. (And, whether you were under the quilt or around the edge, you learned so much from quilting! --- and not necessarily about how to sew.)
3 comments:
Best definition - most complete description - that I've seen of the Sequester.
Another I heard is "Congress managed to shoot America in its own foot."
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Thanks for the definition of quilt! It kind of broadens my mind as to the possibilities. Also, I appreciated your memories of sleeping at Grandma McBride's house in Pima. I don't remember ever being in Pima, although maybe I have been. But I've got similar memories of playing under the quilt and then working on it as I got older. Good times!
Ah yes, quilting. The ladies in my ward RS are somewhat surprised, I think, that I show knowledge on the whole tying-a-quilt thing. They have no idea what a huge part of my growing up it was.
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