Saturday 16 January 2021

Had I The Heaven's Embroidered Cloths...

...Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I've loved that poem since my teens. Partly the whole "I being poor, have only my dreams" bit - which seemed wonderfully romantic to an impoverished student - but also the idea of these beautiful cloths of the heavens. I adore fabric shops - I'm not sure if Yeats, the poet, ever went into one - but if he had, he might have found them - deep blue and purple and black velvets of night, cerulean blue silks of midday, lapis lazuli taffetas  shot with gold and silver, shimmering in the summer heat, soft grey wool of autumn twilight. I can get quite carried away in a fabric shop - just drinking in the colours, feeling the textures, going all poetic, dreaming of what I could do with just half a metre of this one or that one? [I dream, but rarely buy!]

Is it any wonder that over the years I have acquired such a huge stash? Not that I have actually paid much for this stuff- generous people have given me pieces - other friends have downsized, and not wanting to send good fabric to landfill, passed it on to me. And if a garment is outgrown, or worn out, I have often saved just a remnant, it might be useful someday. And The Great Stash has been useful - for all those play costumes, Christmas Tree Projects, little bags for school activities...

On the spare beds at Cornerstones, I have my two Heritage Quilts - and I sat and talked with Rosie in the summer about all the fabrics - "Your Mummy's School Dress" "Grandad's Shirt" "Auntie Steph's Music Waistcoat"...so many memories pieced together.

But I can't take all my Stash into retirement. I got all the boxes from the loft, pruned them by about 50% and sorted the fabrics into different groups: 'proper' patchwork cottons and fat quarters, black and white fabrics, floral prints, large plain lengths, 'fancy and exotics' for costume making, etc. 

I posted in our local Facebook Sewing Group - and now the bags are labelled and lined up in the hall for people to collect

One lady is just learning to sew, and wants 'practice' fabric , another is into 'vintage' stuff, so snapped up the retro florals, a third is a patchwork fiend, and another wanted all the 'plains', one makes clothes for the children. 

And they all live within 5 miles of here. "but how can you bear to part with it?" they've said. Well, I have to - I do not have the space to keep it. All seemed so excited - a carrier bag full for just a couple of pounds. 

And I'm really happy to have shared the fabrics among this group of fellow stitchers. I no longer have all the embroidered cloths - but I still have my dreams, and I am richly blessed. [and for all that I like his poem, I still think WBYeats was a decidedly weird bloke]






 

17 comments:

  1. Fabrics.... Ah yes! I used to hug all the rolls of exotic fabrics whenever I had the chance to visit Liberty's in London, or John Lewis in Kingston....

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    1. Oh, happy memories of John Lewis and Liberty's fabric departments - and watching other customers revelling in the merchandise too (was it you, I wonder...)

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  2. You can always start a new collection in Norfolk!!

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  3. I have been having great success disposing of my dad's unwanted stuff on facebook marketplace. After the hospice charity shop had been and taken what they wanted I have asvertised the rest bit by bit and there should be hardly anything left for the tip. A local organisation that sends tools to Africa took most of the contents of his shed - two very mature gentlemen happily spent a whole morning in there, sorting it all out, which would have been a total nightmare for us. It's been surprising what you can "rehome" with a bit of effort.

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    1. Well done, it is a 'bit of effort' but worth it in the end. Tool With A Mission is a great organisation

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  4. I mean to add that WB Yeates was definitely wierd. I studied his work for A level English and had an Irish teacher who was also wierd, very into his poetry and looked about 80 years old. He was probably only 45!!

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    1. Thank you. Retirement Downsizing does take courage - as you yourself know.

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  6. Reminds me of the Laura Ashley fabric shop in Edinburgh when it first opened up.It had this unique smell of all the combined cloth and the polished wooden floors. I'm inspired to sort out my sewing stuff (already given away quite a lot of woolly stuff). Have a good weekend Angela and Bob.

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    1. Oh don't get me started on the woolly stuff...I have more patterns than I could knit up in 4 lifetimes, and I keep giving away wool to charity knitting projects. I think it is secretly multiplying up in the loft

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  7. "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" has been one of my favorite poems since I, too, was a teen, especially the last three lines! Ah, the parting with the stash! That would be so hard for me!

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  8. I love Yeats, but by no means have no claim to understand him. These words are carved on the memorial in the churchyard at Drumcliffe, where I think you have been on the motorbike Odyssey? Congratulations on the retirement rationalising. It's all very exciting from here!

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  9. Once we are retired, and travel is allowed again, we hope to visit friends - and Ireland is high on my list!!

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  10. Just thought I would say 'hello'. Came over from Sue in Suffolk.

    LOVE your blue quilt top, just my sort of style 🙂 You are very disciplined, I could not even begin to think about thinning out my stash.

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    1. Thank you Jayne. The story of the quilt, and links to the pattern are here http://angalmond.blogspot.com/2010/08/finally-finished.html

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    2. That is even more impressive - I did not realise there were two 🙂

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