Cilantro...No, this isn't an herb garden post. Give me a few more months and there will be plenty of those! This time Cilantro refers to the name of a new set of sheets I purchased this weekend from a holiday gift card Limerick and I were given. I took Haiku to the city this weekend to use our gift cards. She bought clothes and I bought a much-needed set of sheets.
I probably shouldn't admit this, but we were down to one set of very worn sheets for our Queen sized bed. When I washed them (yes, I do that fairly regularly) I had to hurry up: wash, dry, put them back on the bed. So, now I have a beautiful new set that looks very pretty with the polyester crazy quilt sewn many years ago by my paternal grandmother.
Polyester Quilts are a funny thing. No one "oohs and ahhs" over the luxuriousness of polyester. Are there enthusiasts for man-made fabrics as there are for natural fibers? Not that I'm aware of, and yet these quilts (I have a couple) made by both of my grandmothers - probably in the 1970s - of the remnants from their polyester dressed or pant suits, are the most comfortable bedding I've ever had. I have the quilt flipped the "wrong way around" right now so that only the colorful stitching shows against the green backing fabric, just to highlight the new striped sheets.
I met a family at the annual fireworks in our village last summer who were picnicking on a polyester crazy quilt. They agreed that it was the most comfortable blanket they owned. The woman regretted to admit that while it had definitely come down through the family, made by her mother or grandmother, she wasn't sure about the origin of the fabrics. I can look my quilts and call to mind an image of Grandma or Mammaw in a certain dress, or spiffy pantsuit.
photo by Aisling, January 2007