The Ford

The former Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village are now called "The Ford." We are members, which is very nice because we can drop in for certain displays or for as long or as short a visit anytime we wish. There is much too much to see in one visit. Today they had a sidewalk sale of gift shop items. Fortunately it was in the corridor outside the gift shop and not out on the sidewalk because it was really cold this morning. The sale started at 10AM. We got there about 10:15AM and already there was a line. The lady in front of me spent over $300. We got some nice books and toys. After the sale we went into the museum where they had a special show of quilts by Suzanne Allen Hunter. She was a poor black woman from Alabama. Her quilts were needed to keep people warm. She mentions in her writings that at night you could see the stars through the cracks in the ceiling. The quilts were made of pieces of used clothing, you could see where pockets had been because the fabric was less faded there. The quilts were made of large pieces of cloth as she didn't have time to work with small pieces as they needed blankets. Sometimes she filled a new quilt with an old one, sometimes she layed pieces of cloth for the inner layer. Most of the time she took raw cotton and beat it flat and picked out the seeds for the batting layer. The backs were pieced too. I am sure she couldn't imaging the luxury of one of my quilts stuffed with dacron.