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In Their Words

Eleanor Speaks of Edges

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when we are looking for something lovely we can often over look faults of construction rather than faults of conception. Let me illustrate. Years ago I made a rug, a lovely rug. I was so carried away with the harmony in colors that sometimes I pulled a thread tighter sometimes looser. Well when it was done some people came in admiring it asked the price...the man of the party...began to examine [it] more closely. "And your edges" he began.
"Edges" I cried, that rug has no edges!"
He laughed. "It doesn't have to have," he said, pulling out his purse. Now I didn't say that the rugs would not have been just as lovely if it had had edges, but my point is again. Make something beautiful anyhow and make it well if you can.

Eleanor Arms, "Notes on Deerfield Industries for Cape Cod talk, May 25, 1929. Arms Family Papers, Box 10, from the collection of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.