I like the idea of naming my quilts–call it the Eve in me–but I don’t name everything. I read a blog post about someone who named their electronics and I like the idea, but I don’t do it. I do admit that some of my quilts have dorky names. And you’ve read on this blog before that I think people might want to give a little more thought to the names of the quilts that I see hanging up in the shows. My secret weapon in all of this business if finally revealed.
Yes. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. This edition was compiled by Kate Louise Roberts, and if the cracked spine and archaic title didn’t give away its age, certainly the editor’s full name did. Originally published in 1922, the edition I have is the 1940 edition, purchased at an estate sale when I first moved here. I’m a sucker for pithy little lines of verse, beautifully written epigraphs, quotable quotes, and terrific sayings from people, both famous and not. I think I inherited this from my father, who, even in his 85th year, still can find a quotable line for almost every situation–and he recites them from memory. However, I look them up.
So in naming this current quilt, I was intrigued with the idea of “Spring Life” that popped out when writing the last post about this quilt. I looked up “Spring” in the Cyclopedia, and found several verses that were intriguing:
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,
Rock’d in the cradle of the western breeze. (Cowper)
Infant blossoms–wow. What an image.
Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o’ daisies white
Out o’er the grassy lea. (Burns)
Lots of old language in this volume. Liked the idea that Spring puts our her daisy bedding (maybe a quilt?) over the meadow. But the one I liked:
There is no time like Spring,
When life’s alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track. (Rossetti).
Are you bored yet? Thinking up a title takes a little wandering through this book. But I think I’ll go with a hybrid:
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 