The past as told by blankets

Now that the older gen­er­a­tion is pass­ing on, I am tak­ing a longer look at what they have left behind and, on this par­tic­u­lar day, I see blankets.

While mak­ing the bed, I noticed the wool blan­ket that I have taken for granted for nearly 50 years. It resem­bles the L.L. Bean cot­tage blan­ket, yel­low with some red stripes against a cream background.

Actu­ally there were orig­i­nally two, but some­one sewed together these rem­nants using a fine French stitch where the raw edge is folded back on itself and then sewed again. The top of the blan­ket has a satin rib­bon. I love get­ting out this blan­ket for win­ter because it is very warm yet manageable.

Then there are the two beige blan­kets, much lighter than the cot­tage blan­ket. Each one shows wear, but again some­one took the time to repair the holes with a woven wool yarn try­ing to match the beige; she didn’t do a very good job at color cod­ing, but did patch the holes. These blan­kets went on the twin beds in early spring as kind of a tran­si­tion. When I had my B & B a guest remarked that her grand­mother had blan­kets just like them.

Not all the heir­looms came down in favor­able con­di­tion or even repaired. One is nearly paper thin; I fold it up and put it on the rocker on the front porch for the cats. Cats love wool and curl up as snow piles on top of them. Last Jan­u­ary a sick cow lay under a tat­tered wool blan­ket all the while she fought for her life from some unknown afflic­tion. It took a week for her to die despite all we did, but she was as com­fort­able as she could get in her last days.

And finally there is the unusual blan­ket, doesn’t fit any descrip­tion. It is small, short and blue. Its dis­tin­guish­ing fea­ture is that it has puck­ers! Stitches or a draw string has pulled the wool tight at 5-inch inter­vals resem­bling a sheet with air pock­ets; you can’t smooth it out. How­ever, it is a light wool and makes a fine cover on the couch for a quick nap.

I do have some cen­tury old quilts too that I inher­ited, but they don’t have that fla­vor of util­ity; they are more for show — log cabin, the wed­ding rings, the crazy quilt, and the white on white. The lat­ter is really a work of art done by my great-mother. Still I pre­fer the warm, wooly blan­kets that have cov­ered so many lives for so long.

Sylvia Zim­mer­man is the owner of Ful­ton Creek Jer­sey Cheese in Rich­wood, Ohio. She holds two grad­u­ate degrees and, when not work­ing on her farm or pur­su­ing her inter­est in sus­ta­ni­able agri­cul­ture, writes her own blog.

Posted by Sylvia Zimmerman on Apr 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.