A Comforter for Comfort

Photo wikipedia

An unknown grandma in her winter kitchen that looked 

just like grandma Elena's

The temperatures dropped overnight to almost freezing. I added another snowy white cotton blanket on the bed and, as the soft material flurried to the bed surface like pristine snow, a flashback from my childhood hit me – grandma Elena’s heavy comforter, “plapuma” as we called it, maroon on one side and dark blue on the other. It was stuffed with plenty of wool for warmth, extremely heavy, and just big enough to cover the full-size bed.  I had no idea how she washed it, I never saw her do it, I only saw it hanging on the fence, airing it out from time to time. It had a duvet soft cover which was washed periodically.

The comforter was hand-quilted on both sides with heavy wool and a very large and long needle that managed to penetrate all the layers of wool batting. We had to sleep in fetal position, cuddling for warmth, lest feet and hands dangled outside and got cold during the night in such low temperatures that often frosted the windowpanes.

The pillows were stuffed with the chicken feathers we sacrificed for protein from time to time when the hens stopped laying eggs. Feathers were still attached to quills that would poke us through the pillowcase fabric and sometimes made their way out floating to the ground. The inner cases were made of thick and heavy fabric meant to contain the feathers. The outward decorative pillowcases were a work of art, hand-embroidered with flowers and intricate stitchery, starched and pressed with love and perfection. Such pillowcases and matching embroidered sheets were part of a bridal trunk dowry. Nobody had fitted sheets for their mattresses or a box spring for that matter.

If we were lucky the mattress was stuffed with seaweed or shorn wool, washed, combed, and dried. Many in the village had rough jute mattresses stuffed with straw and were glad to have it.

In summertime the beds were adorned with thin woven blankets with intricate patterns and quite colorful. Aunt Ana was a master weaver who made such beautiful blankets in her loom which occupied a small room in her home. I still see her sitting in front of the threads of the looms, feeding wooden spools of thread through, one row at a time, a work of art that took months to complete. It was fascinating to watch her work so fast, never missing a string in the complicated weave. Row after row she had to change the spools with colors that completed whatever complicated patterns she was working on. She never used a paper blueprint, it was all in her head, her eagle eyes, and her hands.

I am looking at my comforter, silky synthetic material probably woven and manufactured in China by skillful hands. The cleaners will dry it on their racks or driers, no exposure on the fence or pooping birds while drying it fully. It is comfortable, light, warm, and useful but it is not a work of art made by aunt Ana’s skillful hands.

I remember grandma Elena making small rugs from hand-woven strips of old clothes, rugs just big enough to step on when we first got out of bed and the room was just above freezing temperatures. She did not want us to step on the cold floor. And the ever-present chamber pot was hidden under the wooden bed which grandpa had fashioned in his little shop attached to the house, a modest lean-to that was absolutely frigid in winter.

The communists did not bother to produce comforters, it was up to a few skilled hands in the city or in the village who produced enough to sell to other people for a modest fee. I was always in awe that the Communist Party allowed such home-artisans to make something. I suppose since it was such an unprofitable endeavor, if you took into account the number of hours devoted vs. the actual price, they did not bother to censure its existence.