Rachel Salvati

A Labor & Legacy of Love: Restoring My Grandmother's Blanket

Growing up, one of the most precious items in my house was a pair of scissors with an orange handle and a small pink ribbon tied to one side to make sure it never got lost. A pair of sewing scissors, reserved for the most important projects - a red skirt for my chorus concerts, a fresh design for a summer camp t-shirt, a homemade Dalmatian Halloween costume crafted from white pajamas and black felt. What I didn't know then was that these scissors represented generations of craftsmanship by my mother's family; my great-grandfather was a tailor by trade, and my grandmother, my Oma, still tells me stories of the clothes she made for herself, my mother and my aunts when they grew up and when it was cheaper to buy fabric and patterns than clothes at the store.