How Dreams Take Flight
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 9:38 PM 
They say that writing a dream down gives it wings….lends it a power it doesn’t have when it’s idly floating about your mind. Maybe it’s because I’m embroiled in Mondo Beyondo right now that I’m attuned to notice such things, but yesterday I came across one of the best examples to prove the rule ever.
I was at Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire. A girly gang of us had driven over for a private viewing of the Hall’s antique quilt collection.…stuff not usually on public display. We sat in an old, stone kitchen and pored over quilt after treasured quilt; each one carefully carried from climate-controlled storage and tenderly unwrapped before our eager eyes.
There were some amazing pieces, but the one that stopped me in my tracks was made by a young girl called Nancy almost 180 years ago. Into the middle of her quilt she had stitched a rhyme. The first stanza gave a few scant facts about her. The second ran:
‘When I am dead and in my grave,
And all my bones are gone to dust
Take up this work and think of me!
When I am quite forgot.’
Nancy had written her dream down in thread, stitched it into the canvas of her quilt; and here we were, nearly two centuries later, gazing at her work, fingering it, admiring it, ‘taking it up and thinking of her’. Her wish come true.
Write down your dreams, my friends! Give them wings. Set them free to fly.
P.S. I’d love to show you pictures of Nancy’s beautiful quilt; but I signed a form to say I wouldn’t share the images I shot. Sorry!
Reader Comments (5)
Beautiful Helen! What a lovely, other-worldly story. As though time stood still for a moment--the past, present, and future all occurring at the same time. shiver.
Fabulous picture.
What a beautiful story about Miss Nancy. May we all leave something which will be picked up years from now. And you will love the perspective that Mondo Beyondo will bring you. Happy dreaming!
ox, K
I've got goosebumps... what a place, what a story! I love the idea of dreams stitched into a quilt...*swoon*... Happy Weekend, Helen ((HUGS))
Amazing! Well done, Nancy -- and Helen, for bringing her dream to fruition.
seems it is the first week you are home in england and not rampaging all over the world !
have a good day