The Four Ts...

textile...
texture.....
tattered.......

that's three, and we'll get to the fourth a little later...

Those are three things that seem to be in my life every day.

My love of textiles ~ antique, vintage, new ~ has been an ongoing thing for years. I really don't remember when it began.

When I was a little girl, just a few years old and not in school yet, Mama kept me busy with a needle and thread and fabric scraps. When Mama passed away, we found boxes and bags of fabric in her attic. I must have inherited her love of fabric.



After I was married and began having children, I learned the benefits of shopping at thrift stores instead of the "new" stores. I started going to save money on a limited budget.

Then came the other joys of weekly trips to the thrift and junk stores ~ finding long lost treasures hidden at the bottom of a box, imagining the life of the previous owners, touching the pieces, feeling the textures, and knowing there is a story with each item.

Always, Mama would find something and call me over to touch it, hold it, and talk about how wonderful it felt in our hands. Maybe it was an old bonnet, faded and worn with the ties barely attached, or maybe it was a scrap from a quilt which was past its usefulness but the owner couldn't bear to toss it out. I know just how they felt. We were always drawn to the tattered treasures, no matter how worn. Mama and I both were known to pick up the pieces and ask to purchase the forlorn little things. No one else wanted them and we had to save them from being forgotten forever.

The most precious benefit of all was spending time with Mama. I'd call her the night before or early that morning and ask if she wanted to go the Goodwill or Salvation Army, or any of the several shops that we visited. She usually answered yes before I could get the entire question asked! It was more than thrifting and junking. It was the time we spent driving to and from those places. It was the time we spent talking and being together as mother and daughter... and as best friends.

That is the fourth T ~ time.

Time is precious. It's fleeting. It's invaluable. It's irretrievable.

Spend your time wisely, with loved ones, even if it's just being together, doing silly, little things.

Sometimes it's the simple little things that I remember about Mama and Daddy.

It's not the grand things ~ it's a simple word, a touch, a moment in time that I remember most.

“Time is too slow for those who wait,

too swift for those who fear,

too long for those who grieve,

too short for those who rejoice,

but for those who love,

time is eternity."

Henry Van Dyke, 1852-1933

~*~