Old are the rags

Another weekend full of activities, wrapped in rags, my granddaughter and I focused on cutting strips and preparing scraps to build a Christmas wreath.

While the selection and cutting was being carried out, many questions arose, the main ones being the origin of the scrap and why I still kept rags whose origin and usefulness was already instinctive, like “dinosaurs”.

I stopped for a while and remembered the book Manta by Isabel Minhós Martins and Yara Kono, I suggested we listen to the story (https://youtu.be/YSRXgtdmrAQ?si=_jnQhJwZKHRNY8sF) and talk a little about the subject, ending up going to get it a small tale that my grandmother gave me, explaining that each piece, from different origins, was hand-cooked to another until the size was sufficient for the construction of the bag.

As the crown took shape through his hands, I got a little caught up in thought and the difficulty I have in letting go of old “rags” due to the emotional form it carries and through upcycling I insist on transforming it so that the story goes from generation to generation.

When I finish a job, like when I brought together a blanket that sheltered my mother and a fragment of the quilt that covered my father on his walks, giving rise to a new blanket that will cradle a new being and who is left with the feeling of a successful mission accomplished and gratitude to my grandmother's words that made me embrace this project: rags are old and even those are mostly useful.