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Friday, March 2, 2018

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist



While this quilt is relevant to today’s turmoil in our country, this quote from Indira Ghandhi is what came to my mind when thinking of a quilt for a show at a local bird sanctuary. They have an art show every year and the theme this year is the migratory bird treaty act of 1918. Basically this treaty brought countries together to agree not to kill off all the birds that migrate to their country from another. 


At the turn of the 19th century in the U.S. and Europe, it became wildly popular—and that’s an understatement—for ladies to wear feathers and whole taxidermied birds on their hats. One ornithologist reported two walks in Manhattan in 1886 and counting 700 hats, 525 of which were topped by feathers or birds. Can you imagine walking around with dead birds on your head! This is one of the reasons a lot of birds were massacred back in the day causing some to become extinct and others to come close. Which is why the migratory bird treaty was so important. 

Thank God our forefathers (and mother’s) thought enough of our environment to put this plan in place. Now if we could just change our current evil ways, the planet would be a much better place.

                                                                                      😏

2 comments:

  1. That quilt is amazing. I remember the controversy about using ostrich feathers on the Mardi Gras costumes when I was young. But that was well after 1918! ( Although some days it feels like it was before 1918.)

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  2. You might know from the name of my blog that I LOVE birds. This post gave a bit of information that I didn't know. This quilt and quote ARE relevant to our world today in so many ways. It's wonderful.
    xx, Carol

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