Thursday 2 August 2012

92. Dustsheets

92. Dustsheet.

Whilst I enjoy being away on holiday I am always happy to return; I'm a home bird at heart. Since my marriage we have always lived in old houses and have become adept at making alterations, with walls down, doors moved and decorative colours carefully chosen. I have some of my father's dustsheets, stenciled with his name. They have seen a lot of action over the years, not only with our own projects but before that in my childhood home, which my father had designed and built. His dustsheets were often in use because he was constantly engaged in new decorative ideas and 'improvements'.

Inevitably the dustsheets have become blotched with marks over time. There are small spots of colour that act as a trigger to memories; rich ultramarine, a reminder of the dining room in an earlier home and a deep red brown that recalls a front door. Dustsheets are such useful things, and these, which must be well over seventy years old, are of wonderful quality. The family association is precious to me. I wash them and treat them as though they are cashmere blankets!

93. Garden trowel.

My elder daughter made this trowel in her craft lessons when she was a schoolgirl. It is still going strong! I spend a great deal of time in my garden grubbing about in the soil and have a motley collection of tools, some more useful than others. For obvious reasons the is the one that I handle with the greatest care.

5 comments:

  1. Dustsheets always used to be substantial, reusable, last-forever, heirlooms. One could have stretched them as canvas.

    I can see why you treasure that trowel. One of my sons made a plumb-line weight at school... I treasure that too.

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  2. Come on, Cro, do your hundred objects, I would love to read it.

    A plumb-line weight, what a clever, practical little object to have made, I have my father's.

    I'm going slowly, thinking what objects are most meaningful to me now that I've only seven spaces left, and they are things of no monetary or aesthetic value whatsoever but things that link me to the people and places that I love.

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  3. It's been awhile since I've read your blog but so happy I checked in today. The trowel your daughter made is perfect! Here the teachers have the kids make ridiculous cards that take 10 seconds of work, no wonder the kids can never concentrate on anything.

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  4. I have dropped into your blog from time to time, via Cro, and decided today that I want to call in on a miore regular basis....partly because of your dust sheets. My grandfather was a painter and decorator ( unemployed, casual labourer, if the truth be known) and I have a couple of his dust sheets. I love them too, I wash them and hav even been known to iron them, and savour the memories of ancient and fading blobs of paint. A great post... thanks J.

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