Quilt Sighting

While on our quick trip around the sites of Xi'an earlier this month, we stopped into the Wild Goose Pagoda. Since I already had lots of shots of the place, I took a little more time to look at it with my eyes rather than just through the camera.


At one of the temples on the ground, I noticed something that I thought would be of interest to the segment of my readers who are passionate about fabric. There are lots of places to buy fabric suitable for making clothing here; I've been to the fabric market and have seen lots of fabric destined to made into clothing, but I have not yet seen any craft shops, you know where people might buy fabric to quilt. Given the thriftiness of people here, and the long history of poverty for a great number of people, I expected more recycling of fabric into things like quilts and pillows.

Imagine then, my pleasure at finding these three cushions on the wooden kneelers in front of the buddhas. They have clearly been made with scraps of fabric and are one of the more colorful things in the temple. Two of them are three dimensional; they have little triangles that stick out like flower petals. I wonder if the monks made them?

Now that I have seen some evidence, I guess that I will just have to look harder to find more.