The one of a kind CatieCake has this cool quote in her e-mail signature:

The handmade thing forms a link between the person who made it and the person that uses it. ~Hiroshima Kazou.

The truth of that line was driven home yesterday when I was rifling through my cupboard that holds the precious things. Ummmm, and if any of you are thinking that cupboard holds priceless jewelry, antiques or anything along that line you'd be wrong.

My precious things are little bits of handiwork made by people I love. Their dollar value is probably low, their emotional value is beyond reckoning. As a for instance, among the things in there is a teensy tiny baby suit my mother-in-law knit for Jess more than 20 years ago.

Emily, the CEO of Krapsnart got me thinking about that when she wrote about the pleasure she gets from knitting. I got rummaging in the cupboard because I wanted to see what shape the little knit suit was in.

And as I opened the various bags I stumbled on something I forgot I had, something that has been sitting in a bag I probably haven't opened in 20 years.

My mother died when I was nine and there isn't much around to remember her by because she died under unhappy circumstances. She had been working on an incredibly detailed linen cutwork tablecloth at the time of her death and for some reason my father held on to it. Eventually it came to me.

Hand me a spade and I'm a happy camper. Hand me a needle and some embroidery thread and ... well ... avert your eyes because it ain't a pretty sight.

So the unfinished tablecloth languished in a bag in my precious things cupboard. It would have probably stayed that way except for my friend, Anne.

Anne and I have been friends forever, nearly 30 years now, and she was my maid of honour when I married. She still lives in Ottawa where we met all those years ago.

On one of her visits here she brought some embroidery, so I pulled out my mom's tablecloth to show her. She said it was too beautiful not to finish, she would do it. It was too big a present to accept without giving something in return, so Paul made her a leather camera case. (Notice how I somehow weasled out of actually contributing anything to this swap myself? Slick move, huh?)

Anyhow, seeing that tablecloth last night reminded me how rare long friendships are. It's a four hour drive between our homes and so casual drop ins aren't possible anymore and haven't been for nearly 25 years. Yet we've kept in touch.

We talk a few times a year on the phone, exchange occasional e-mails, but last night it felt like that's not enough. I sent her an invite to come for a visit and play catch up. I hope she'll grab her camera and come here for the colours, the leaves when they turn are too beautiful to miss.

Ms. Catie's quote was soooooooo right. As long as I own that tablecloth, I'll always be linked to Anne and to my mother.

Now here's where it gets a little spooky. If any of you want to call the guys with the oversized butterfly nets to come to take ol' Marn to the place with the padded rooms and nurses who speak to you in soothing tones and give you lots of pudding, well, feel free.

Because when I was photographing the tablecloth for this entry, for the first time it registered just exactly what has been embroidered and cut out of this fabric that ties both to my friend and my mother to me.

Daffodils. Daffodils mean the world to me.